SBS Dateline | Interview with Will Hutton

Coming out of an horrendous year when Britain’s banking system teetered precariously on the edge of collapse, it’s been time for the country’s political parties to put their cards on the table.

At the Conservatives’ conference in Manchester this week, shadow chancellor George Osborne finally delivered his Plan to Save The World – and the prospect was pretty grim.

In his speech, Osbourne asked the nation to make a collective sacrifice in which everyone but the poorest would have to contribute to reduce "the largest deficit in our modern history".

Despite his reputation as a New Labour economics guru in the early years of Tony Blair's leadership and a proponent of the larger state, economist and commentator Will Hutton now believes the tide has turned and that it is a certainty that the Tories will triumph at a general election.

“After 12 years in power, the accumulation of compromises and disappointed hopes is too much – let alone the economic bust that Gordon Brown promised would never happen. The country is determined on change and unless some dramatic event, cock-up or scandal blights the conservatives, by the next June David Cameron will be prime minister,” he says.

On air: 11th October 2009