Today’s Times (£) reports last night’s reshuffle as having been to prevent a coup (later clarified to say a “backbench coup“). The BBC are trying to give the story legs. There certainly was concern about the possible actions of two right-wing backbenchers to further undermine Ed Miliband’s leadership, and the reshuffle was designed to strengthen the small band […]
Posts Tagged ‘Ed Balls’
Investment, jobs, growth must be Labour’s policy, not austerity
Sep 25th, 2014 by Michael Meacher.Labour has had a successful party conference, Ed Miliband made a powerful speech with a strong commanding narrative of Labour’s objectives for government, but the only let-down was in the crucial area of economic policy. Ed Balls’ embrace of the the right-wing Tory orthodoxy of prolonged austerity until at least 2020 is as unbelievable as […]
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Balls is wrong. Austerity max is a recipe for defeat
Sep 23rd, 2014 by Jon Lansman.Tony Blair was elected by offering new hope in 1997 after the ravages of Thatcherism. New Labour squandered that victory. Five million votes were lost between 1997 and 2010 by taking our core voters for granted. Since then working class voters have defected in droves to UKIP. And most recently, in Scotland, to “Yes” and the SNP. Ed Balls seems determined that […]
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Ed Balls and “ideology”
Jul 9th, 2014 by David Pavett.Our politicians regularly try to convince us that they are just practical people interested in what works and not beholden to any theory. The idea that reality can be directly perceived just as it is, without recourse to any system of ideas, is idiotic. Making this claim is not an attractive trait. It means that […]
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Lobby your MP to join Labour rebellion against social security cap
Mar 24th, 2014 by Conrad Landin.The New Statesman report today that Labour MPs including Diane Abbott, Ian Lavery and John McDonnell are planning to vote against capping benefit, when a vote on this issue takes place this Wednesday, “with more to follow”. Abbott told the Statesman that the benefit cap was “part of a political narrative which demonises welfare claimants; most […]
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Beware the coming together of Mandy and Balls
Feb 26th, 2014 by Jon Lansman.Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble. The coming together of Peter Mandelson and Ed Balls is portentous of something afoot. Even for Mandy to be asked to fundraise for Balls sends a chill across the Westminster bubble. In Mandy’s words: Weren’t we the commanders-in-chief in the battle between the TBs and GBs for […]
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The 50p tax rate – a welcome blow against the entitlement culture
Jan 26th, 2014 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.Did Ed Balls announce the nationalisation of the top 100 monopolies or something at yesterday’s Fabian conference? I was there, and he assuredly did not. To make sure the dangerous radicalism of putting 5p on the top rate of tax was boxed in, he even ruled out renationalising energy companies and the rail. And yet, according […]
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2014: the year Miliband’s Labour turns left?
Jan 4th, 2014 by Thomas Butler.In 2014, Ed Miliband and his colleagues need to understand once more the reasons The Labour Party came into fruition. And they need to articulate a clear, radical alternative to Tory Austerity with a vision of a post neo-liberal Britain that appeals to swing voters, but also many of those ‘don’t knows’ and stay at […]
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Ed Balls’s speech: what he said in 22 points
Sep 25th, 2013 by David Pavett.As the 2015 election approaches the details of policy pronouncements become every more important. The notes below are intended to summarise the points in Ed Balls Annual Conference speech in 22 points. Under the Coalition: 1. tax increases and cuts have not delivered the promised deficit reduction and economic growth. They have failed by the […]
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Ken Clarke, Gordon Brown – and why the Eds shouldn’t back Tory spending plans
Jun 26th, 2013 by Mark Seddon.Shortly after Labour’s landslide victory in 1997, for some perverse reason I invited Ken Clarke to attend one of our monthly Tribune dinners in the Gay Hussar restaurant, that old canteen of the Labour Left, in London’s Soho. Clarke professed himself baffled by the assembled journos, cartoonists, MPs and trades unionists asking if we spent […]
