Labour and Mr Balls

Mr Balls: Even in the best of times, Labour expectations need careful management where public spending is concerned. Irrespective of who may be to blame for the continuing fragility of the public finances, the next few years will involve painful decisions. So it is not hard to see why Mr Balls gave the speech he did. But, as he and the chancellor are well aware, the polling shows that Labour is never going to win an argument about who can take the toughest choices. Through the dog days of 2011 and 2012, Mr Balls specialised in a sharp criticism of the coalitions attempts to cut its way out of stagnation. By always thinking about the deficit first and the economy second, he argued, the government neglected its own role in keeping the economy moving, as well as the effect of growth on the books, according to The Guardian. The specific savings that Mr Balls identified lower ministerial pay, an affluence test on pensioners fuel payments and one extra year of capped child benefit will make no discernible dent in the deficit. They are important only for what they say about where the serious axe-wielding would be targeted after the election. By swallowing a pay cut for themselves, as well as by floating various taxes on banks, mansions and top pay, Labours top brass signal determination to push more austerity on to the well-heeled. By withdrawing winter fuel help from the wealthiest 5% of pensioners, Mr Balls prefigures a wider discussion about the imbalance of benefit cuts affecting the old and the young. More significant still, by vowing to do what it takes to save the NHS , he signals readiness to put up taxes, drawing a line under the coalitions grotesquely lopsided fiscal tightening, which involves chopping around 9 off public services and benefits for every 1 in extra revenues and On almost any measure, George Osbornes plan A did not come off. The two years of lost growth he inherited became six, wages remain stuck on the floor, and one parliamentary term of austerity has slowly turned into two. Somehow, however and despite Ed Ballss spirited speech on Monday there is a sense in which the chancellor has got his Labour shadow just where he wants him in the run-up to the election. For where Mr Balls likes talking about investment and growth, themes his party is always keen to hear about too, on Monday he was explaining how he would retrench. But the Keynesian case for doing something different was only ever going to last for as long as the downturn persisted, which was never going to be forever. In its place, it might have been good to hear some development of Ed Milibands predatory versus productive capitalism theme , ideas about reforming the banks, for example, or even some comment about the latest corporate shenanigans at Tesco . Instead, the shadow chancellor simply lapsed into the coalitions own dubious analogy between family and government budgets: Working people have had to balance their own books. And they are clear that the government needs to balance its books too. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.