It’s all very well for Ed Balls to announce that the next Labour government will be ‘ruthless and disciplined’ over public spending and will carry through a zero-based spending review to justify every pound spent.
Of course that’s right since nobody in their right mind can believe that the Tory spending cuts can be reversed just like that in an economy still being dragged down by prolonged recession. But that’s not the real point. The real question is, if Labour inherits a budget deficit as large as or even larger than today’s (which is quite likely), how would a new Labour government deal with it? Would it make further cuts a’ la Osborne, or would it adopt a wholly different strategy?