The knee-jerk reaction from the left to being called “deficit deniers” is nigh on hysterical, this morning Comrade Maguire over at the Mirror indulges in a ritual denuciation of Maggie, quotes Neil Kinnock approvingly and says “I’m proud to be called one of George Osborne’s deficit deniers”. Given that the polling shows the public understands the need for spending cuts and the peril the deficit presents, our Kev is advertising his exit from what could be described as the reality-based community.

Over at the Staggers, Medhi Hussein, too says “I’m proud to be a deficit denier”.  Confusingly, for a self-described polemicist, he then qualifies what he writes, claiming that he doesn’t “deny the existence of this country’s largest Budget deficit since the war” nor “pretend that cuts will never come”. Which somewhat suggests that one of the few media admirers of Balls isn’t such a proud deficit denier after all.

The deficit-denier-in-chief, Ed Balls, one half of the duo that abolished “boom and bust”, is the bookies favourite to be eliminated in the first round of the Labour leadership election. Nevertheless Balls is sticking to his “so what?” position, claiming deficit reduction is the “economics of the madhouse”. Absurdly Balls reckons even Alistair Darling’s modest deficit reduction plan was wrong: “Halving the deficit in four years by cutting public spending… I think was a mistake. In government at the time in 2009 I always accepted collective responsibility, but at the time in 2009 I thought the pace of deficit reduction through spending cuts was not deliverable, I didn’t think it could have been done… I’m not happy to accept cuts in any part of the budget…” Guido thinks that is really the “economics of the madhouse”…