According to Dan Hodges blogging at the New Statesman, Ed Balls should be sacked as Shadow Chancellor in the coming reshuffle. And why? For having been the key architect behind Gordon Brown of New Labour’s neo-liberal economic strategy of deregulation and tax cuts? Certainly not. For “unlearning every rule he once imposed with iron, and occasionally brutal, discipline on others.” He is, Hodges says, “one of the few political heavyweights on the front bench” and “his prescriptions for the nation’s ills may be economically sound,” but he has to go. These things are “politically unsustainable“, apparently. Continue reading
Tagged with Shadow Chancellor
Ed Balls reminds Labour that Ramsay McDonald also said there is no alternative to cuts
In his address to conference, after another hard-hitting attack on Michael Gove and Coalition education policy (it was, after all, the Education session), Ed Balls set out his economic alternative to their cuts agenda — “put growth and jobs first”. And in a coded warning to the cuts enthusiasts in the hall, he reminded conference that Ramsay MacDonald, as Labour Prime Minister had also argued that there was no alternative to cuts. MacDonald had been rejected by Labour (as had the über-Blairites today) but he went on to make the cuts (in a Tory dominated coalition) and cause economic devastation for a generation. With it looking ever more certain that David Miliband will not stand for the shadow cabinet, it is looking increasingly likely that Ed Balls will be shadow chancellor. And a good thing too!
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Ed Balls uniquely qualified to be Shadow Chancellor
There have been two important outcomes from the debate over the last few months: Ed Miliband has come from behind to win support for change in the party. And Ed Balls has, in beginning to turn public opinion on the deficit back towards Labour, demonstrated his unique qualification to be Ed Miliband’s shadow chancellor. Continue reading
