THE clash of political cultures that will dominate the next General Election had its first airing yesterday in a post-Budget Question Time filmed for The Northern Echo’s website.

“The vision of the Labour Party is that you can’t simply cut your way out of recession as the Conservative Party tried in the Eighties and Nineties,” said Darlington Councillor Nick Wallis. “You have to grow your way out, while supporting the most vulnerable in society who tend to get left behind.

But Graham Robb, who was the Conservative candidate in the Sedgefield by-election nearly two years ago, countered: “It was a dishonest Budget. We needed a wartime spirit to cope with the problems we have got. Instead, what we got was class war.”

They were taking part in this month’s Northern Decision Makers internet TV programme, which features a panel discussion filmed live in front of an invited audience of business leaders.

The 30-minute debate was chaired by Alastair Thomson, dean of Teesside Business School in his capacity as Tees Valley chairman of the Institute of Directors. It took place in Meadow, at Lingfield Point, Darlington.

John Orchard, director of Marchday, which has developed Lingfield Point, was also on the panel. He was concerned that uncertainty about the validity of the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s forecasts would hinder the recovery.

He said: “All the sages of the world have got it terribly wrong, so why should we sit here and believe the latest figures?

There’s a huge unknown out there and it is casting a pall over everything in the economy.”

Fellow panellist Allan Cook, of Arlington Financial, of Hartlepool, was concerned that the Government didn’t have any guarantees that for all its borrowing, its plan would work. “When you are taking on three-quarters of a trillion-worth of debt, you have got to be pretty sure that you are getting out of it what you want,” he said.

The real knock-about stuff, though, was from the two politicians. Mr Wallis tried to defend the Government’s attempts to “pump prime” the economy, firstly by spending on public services and in the Budget by investing in green industries to provide future jobs.

But Mr Robb said: “I think you have gone to confused dot com for some of your answers.”

■ Watch this month’s Northern Decision Makers at northernecho.co.uk/video/ndm/

*Pictured are, from left, Allan Cook, chairman of Arlington Financial, Councillor Nick Wallis, Alastair Thomson, Dean of Teesside Business School, Graham Robb, member of the NE board of the Conservative Party, and John Orchard, director of Marchday plc