I don't like the line of argument which says "since the current government's cuts are only x% more severe than those proposed in Labour's 2010 manifesto, Labour's opposition to cuts is insincere."
This argument is bad not only because the difference was actually substantial, or because the current opposition isn't obliged to agree with its previous manifesto proposals, but also because it overlooks the defining difference between the two main parties' 2010 cuts plans.
Labour's plan was explicitly to cut less if, as has now happened, conditions changed so as to make cuts more harmful. Alastair Darling et al said many times that their plan was to wait until the economy was healthy and then reduce public spending, while the Conservatives said that this was a bad idea and proposed to cut government spending as fast as feasible in a way which didn't depend on the health of the economy. Labour's plan was conditional in a way that the Conservative plan wasn't.
Whatever you think about the relative merits of these two proposals, this difference clearly shows that the argument above is wrong. Given the actual trajectory of Britain's economic health (the extent to which this has been caused by the government's bad policies notwithstanding), a Labour government could arguably have remained consistent with their manifesto without having cut spending at all.
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