  Steve Richards  Steve Richards: The Tories have had it easy
too long  I cannot recall an opposition that has changed its
approach to tax/spend so often  Not surprisingly Peter Mandelson
and other ministers leap on the latest shift in the
Conservatives' economic policy making. Labour went so far as to
hold a news conference to highlight David Cameron's flakiness in
respect to his plans for spending cuts immediately after the
election.  On second thoughts Labour's response is quite
surprising. For years Cameron and George Osborne were allowed to
say more or less anything and the dysfunctional Downing Street
machine never challenged them. Apparently part of the
conversation between Mandelson and Osborne when they met
famously on a boat in the Greek sunshine two summers ago related
to the lack of any Labour onslaught against Tory speeches. Over
a glass or two Mandelson told Osborne that he thought a speech
the Shadow Chancellor had delivered to Demos that August had
been preposterous. Osborne gave Mandelson the