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| Ed Balls was too prudent. We need full-throttle fury | Ed Balls was too prudent. We need full-throttle fury |
| (about 1 hour later) | |
| God knows, there's no worse an occasion for any politician. When the shadow chancellor gets up to reply to a budget he has only a wing and a prayer, a ready-cooked joke and a string of defamatory statistics. He stands alone and defenceless against an armoury forged over months by Treasury officials and master political spinners. | God knows, there's no worse an occasion for any politician. When the shadow chancellor gets up to reply to a budget he has only a wing and a prayer, a ready-cooked joke and a string of defamatory statistics. He stands alone and defenceless against an armoury forged over months by Treasury officials and master political spinners. |
| Ed Balls did pretty well. He is clever, strategic and wily. He knows the ropes from the other side and his cannonade of figures exposing George Osborne's abysmal economic failure had the hard punch of undeniable truth. | Ed Balls did pretty well. He is clever, strategic and wily. He knows the ropes from the other side and his cannonade of figures exposing George Osborne's abysmal economic failure had the hard punch of undeniable truth. |
| But there are symbolic moments demanding an immediate gut reaction – and he missed it. There was a chance to boomerang the "welfare" weapon back at Osborne but he dropped it. He should have thumped the chancellor from here to kingdom come with his vile little one-week cut to jobseeker's allowance for the newly unemployed. | But there are symbolic moments demanding an immediate gut reaction – and he missed it. There was a chance to boomerang the "welfare" weapon back at Osborne but he dropped it. He should have thumped the chancellor from here to kingdom come with his vile little one-week cut to jobseeker's allowance for the newly unemployed. |
| Let's get one thing clear: this was pure symbolism. As with the so-called "welfare cap", it has less to do with the real world than politics at its most visceral. Osborne called Labour "the welfare party" and in the panic of the moment Balls ducked when he should have chucked the grenade back across the floor. Here's what he could have said: | Let's get one thing clear: this was pure symbolism. As with the so-called "welfare cap", it has less to do with the real world than politics at its most visceral. Osborne called Labour "the welfare party" and in the panic of the moment Balls ducked when he should have chucked the grenade back across the floor. Here's what he could have said: |
"This | "This is a spiteful attack on working people at the moment of their greatest anxiety. As soon as they lose their job, you will plunge them straight into rent arrears, forcing them to take out payday loans just to feed their family and heat their home. |
"Since | "Since the founding of the welfare state people in Britain know that a safety net of social security will protect any working person unlucky enough to lose their job. Shame on you for breaking that social contract. Shame on you for attacking people in their first week without work, before anyone can call them skivers or scroungers. Enough of your politics of hate: you cut tax credits you said were taken by idlers behind bedroom blinds, but 70% of those cuts fell on working people in jobs, too low paid to keep their families. |
"No | "No one tolerates benefit cheats, but you mistake the common decency of the people of this country if you think they want to grind the unemployed into debt-ridden poverty. The welfare party? You are the party waging class war against all who have no jobs because of your growth-killing policies." |
| Something in that vein – write it yourself – would have wiped the smirk off the faces opposite. What a roar it would have raised from Labour benches and supporters in the country, who need a full-throttle rallying cry now and then. Instead, my inbox is full of upset and angry Labourish people, shocked at the Eds accepting Osborne's overall envelope for current spending and the "cap" on some benefits. Why preach Keynes then knuckle under to Hayek, they ask. | Something in that vein – write it yourself – would have wiped the smirk off the faces opposite. What a roar it would have raised from Labour benches and supporters in the country, who need a full-throttle rallying cry now and then. Instead, my inbox is full of upset and angry Labourish people, shocked at the Eds accepting Osborne's overall envelope for current spending and the "cap" on some benefits. Why preach Keynes then knuckle under to Hayek, they ask. |
| It would weaken the gesture if Labour spelled out the truth economists spy, that this cap is plastic and flexible to interpretation. Ask the Treasury and they admit they haven't begun to work out what a cap for 2015-16 really means. Remember Osborne's famous "fiscal rules", forgotten and unmentioned this week, all broken. The cap looks like another Osborne gesture. Just like the inflation target requiring the Bank of England governor to write to the chancellor whenever it's breached (every year), the Office for Budget Responsibility will need to write to him when the cap is breached and the chancellor will tell the house. It's an unpleasant talisman, but no one can forecast the benefit bill four years ahead, as it depends on the state of the economy and jobs, on the longevity of pensioners and numbers of babies born. Whatever the cap, the level of benefits will always be the essential stuff of the politics of the day. | It would weaken the gesture if Labour spelled out the truth economists spy, that this cap is plastic and flexible to interpretation. Ask the Treasury and they admit they haven't begun to work out what a cap for 2015-16 really means. Remember Osborne's famous "fiscal rules", forgotten and unmentioned this week, all broken. The cap looks like another Osborne gesture. Just like the inflation target requiring the Bank of England governor to write to the chancellor whenever it's breached (every year), the Office for Budget Responsibility will need to write to him when the cap is breached and the chancellor will tell the house. It's an unpleasant talisman, but no one can forecast the benefit bill four years ahead, as it depends on the state of the economy and jobs, on the longevity of pensioners and numbers of babies born. Whatever the cap, the level of benefits will always be the essential stuff of the politics of the day. |
| As for this JSA cut, already it's plunging into the mire of universal credit chaos, snared in other monthly benefits in this "simpler" system. It would be a work disincentive, as people dropping in and out of work will frequently fear leaving benefits for a temporary job. Doubts suggest it may join the scrapheap of other Osborne/Cameron one-day wonders. | As for this JSA cut, already it's plunging into the mire of universal credit chaos, snared in other monthly benefits in this "simpler" system. It would be a work disincentive, as people dropping in and out of work will frequently fear leaving benefits for a temporary job. Doubts suggest it may join the scrapheap of other Osborne/Cameron one-day wonders. |
| For those angry at Labour accepting the 2015 iron envelope there is room to rearrange taxes and spending, who pays and who gains: a bank bonus tax pays for a job guarantee for the young unemployed; a mansion tax pays for a 10p tax band; "tackle high rents to cut housing benefit", Ed Balls said. Expect the bedroom tax rescinded. Expect a pledge for a million homes – and, yes, borrow to do it, something Balls fluffed on the BBC, forced to admit borrowing instead of explaining plainly that a national mortgage for an asset is not the same as splurging on a big night out. | For those angry at Labour accepting the 2015 iron envelope there is room to rearrange taxes and spending, who pays and who gains: a bank bonus tax pays for a job guarantee for the young unemployed; a mansion tax pays for a 10p tax band; "tackle high rents to cut housing benefit", Ed Balls said. Expect the bedroom tax rescinded. Expect a pledge for a million homes – and, yes, borrow to do it, something Balls fluffed on the BBC, forced to admit borrowing instead of explaining plainly that a national mortgage for an asset is not the same as splurging on a big night out. |
| What will Labour do in office, the suspicious ask. Why vote for them if they'll be no different? That requires a deal of trust – and that's why symbols and indignation matter alongside the Eds' sober-sided prudence. The politics are tightrope-tense: Labour is still more blamed for the miserable state of the economy and less trusted to fix it. Credibility depends on a rock-solid plan for deficit reduction, hence the iron envelope. But voters at elections look to the future – winning depends too on the best vision of hope. Labour visions only work if certified by constraint, hard choices, iron discipline, caps and all the things that have Labour folk too quick to cry, "Betrayal – again!". | What will Labour do in office, the suspicious ask. Why vote for them if they'll be no different? That requires a deal of trust – and that's why symbols and indignation matter alongside the Eds' sober-sided prudence. The politics are tightrope-tense: Labour is still more blamed for the miserable state of the economy and less trusted to fix it. Credibility depends on a rock-solid plan for deficit reduction, hence the iron envelope. But voters at elections look to the future – winning depends too on the best vision of hope. Labour visions only work if certified by constraint, hard choices, iron discipline, caps and all the things that have Labour folk too quick to cry, "Betrayal – again!". |
| Labour could lie. No one ever rode to power on such a husky sledge of blatant untruth as David Cameron – greenest, most family-friendly, kindest to poor and disabled children and no frontline cuts. Osborne has not a word of truth in him – fiddled figures slammed as "woeful" by the Institute for Fiscal Studies. So why shouldn't Labour swear blind to anything harsh – and then do no such thing? No point; why vote Labour for a lighter shade of blue? It wouldn't be believable anyway – Ed Miliband's strength is his authenticity and honesty. He won't, he can't and it wouldn't work. | Labour could lie. No one ever rode to power on such a husky sledge of blatant untruth as David Cameron – greenest, most family-friendly, kindest to poor and disabled children and no frontline cuts. Osborne has not a word of truth in him – fiddled figures slammed as "woeful" by the Institute for Fiscal Studies. So why shouldn't Labour swear blind to anything harsh – and then do no such thing? No point; why vote Labour for a lighter shade of blue? It wouldn't be believable anyway – Ed Miliband's strength is his authenticity and honesty. He won't, he can't and it wouldn't work. |
| Whoever wins next time faces a deficit like a garotte around public finances, much worsened by Osborne. Anyone tempted to think Labour might prefer to lose this election should look long and hard at the them-and-us war waged by Cameron and Osborne. You have to pinch yourself to believe these privileged class warriors' naked venom against the poor, their tax cuts for the rich, 5% more for the Queen, the biggest fall yet in ordinary incomes and shire counties eased while inner cities are squeezed. Whatever the inevitable "betrayals" and compromises of power, Labour always makes fairer choices. But now and then, the Eds need to flash that red flag of outrage at this coalition's worst abominations. The JSA cut is just the latest of these. | Whoever wins next time faces a deficit like a garotte around public finances, much worsened by Osborne. Anyone tempted to think Labour might prefer to lose this election should look long and hard at the them-and-us war waged by Cameron and Osborne. You have to pinch yourself to believe these privileged class warriors' naked venom against the poor, their tax cuts for the rich, 5% more for the Queen, the biggest fall yet in ordinary incomes and shire counties eased while inner cities are squeezed. Whatever the inevitable "betrayals" and compromises of power, Labour always makes fairer choices. But now and then, the Eds need to flash that red flag of outrage at this coalition's worst abominations. The JSA cut is just the latest of these. |