Announcing the fiercest public-spending cuts in decades in the House of Commons on October 20th, George Os-borne, the chancellor of the exchequer, played bad cop, listing all the adornments that Britain can no longer afford. On October 25th, at the annual conference of the Confederation of British Industry (cbi), it was the turn of David Cameron, the cuddlier prime minister, to play good cop. Mr Cameron's theme was growth; one of the main methods he touted for achieving it is the government's National Infrastructure Plan, a blueprint for investing ￡200 billion ($316 billion) of public and private money over the next five years in Britain's railways, power stations, roads, internet access and scientific-research base.
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