it was weak. All he has got to say is that this, that and the other is something I'd like to do but as we all know there isn't any money.......when the deficit has been got down blah blah. Going on aspirations is defensible. It has in any case been legally determined that a pledge in a political manifesto cannot be taken as a contractual promise. We saw that with the court case in Brighton where an action was brought against the regime for non-performance of its "pledge" to hold a referendum over the Lisbon Treaty. The gov't's barrister argued, successfully apparently, that a political pledge doesn't mean anything much It seems odd to me that the Tories are on the defensive about what they (we) will be able to afford after the election. Why don't they just repeat and repeat - 'we can't afford it because labour have wrecked the economy'. I expected the Guardian to have more on the winners and losers of the plot. It seems to me that the plot - whilst it failed in its objective - will have a significant impact on any post-election leadership bid should labour (as seems likely) lose. In this context Miliband (D) seems to have lost out big time as a result of the plot, and potentially Harman has not come out of it smelling of roses either. Notice how - of the big beasts in labour who may challenge for the leadership post a Brown defeat - only