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Following just one day of independent scrutiny of the Pre-Budget Report those are the questions our politicians must answer.  Most government financial statements unravel a bit in the days 

after they are made but Alistair Darling’s was too threadbare to suffer so modest a setback. Instead it has come apart at the seams.  The highly respected Institute for Fiscal Studies has

calculated that dramatic cuts of up to 20 per cent in public service budgets will be needed just to implement Mr Darling’s feeble plan to halve the annual deficit.  Darling has not the first

idea how such a task can be accomplished. Worse still, he has no credible plan for stimulating the vigorous economic growth that will be essential in the years ahead.  Nor, it must be said,

do the opposition parties. Nobody doubts the terrifying extent of the national debt. But slashing public spending will, on its own, not be enough to tame it.  Only by sharpening incentives

for hard work and enterprise and introducing disincentives to idleness can the economy be kick-started. That means taking bold and courageous decisions like abandoning the so-called

“crusade” to end child poverty that in reality means couch potatoes throughout the land can guarantee themselves a minimum 60 per cent of average household income simply by reproducing. And

it means radical reform to make public sector pensions affordable.  It also means cutting taxes on workers and employers instead of putting them up. From national insurance to income tax and

 corporation tax, Britain’s discouragements to wealth creation have got wildly out of hand.  Too many people have been hitching a free ride on the efforts of the hardworking majority for far

too long.  Any future administration hoping to pull Britain out of the mire must let working people keep more of the wealth they create and redirect much less of it to the bloated public

sector and to the feckless. Labour will never do it. The time has come for the Conservatives to tell us that they will.