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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Labour cannot go into GE2015 with Balls still shadow chancellor
For me the striking feature of today’s autumn statement was how poorly Ed Balls performed. Yes he had to face a massive barrage of noise from the other side but his really poor communication skills were shown up. He’s just far too agressive and talks to fast.
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I backed Rachel Reeves and Chuka then
http://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2012/08/28/is-one-ed-better-than-two/
He's probably worth a couple of percent to the Tories, but it probably won't matter that much to whether Labour get back in. The problem will be once they get in and everyone remembers how useless he is.
The country is maxed out on debt and we need to bring sanity back to the public finances. ANY Labour Chancellor (and it probably will be just that after 2015) is going to have to apply Sound Money principles whether they like it or not. A move back to 'borrow n spend' would lead to an interest rate / mortgage disaster in very short order. How that will be compatible with the Labour mindset on public spending is going to be interesting!
You can see this in action on here from the fact that they'll all claiming the economy and public finances were in good shape in 2010. Mental.
Agree with Mike that Chris Leslie came across very well on the BBC earlier. He made the point, that I think tim also made, that wages are forecast to come down by Osborne in the next year or two, very clearly.
Steven Woolfe of UKIP was the most business like person on the whole show though. Very knowledgeable on his brief, and spoke clearly and concisely.
Even so, I think Ed is stuck with Ed. Labour's deficit denial is, as predicted, coming back to haunt them. They are trying to repair the damage - I notice that they did finally get to understand that Osborne's creation of the OBR could in principle help them gain credibility, albeit at the cost of accepting reality - but the misguided attacks on Osborne for the first two years of the parliament can't simply be brushed aside: a large chunk of Labour's supporters are Labour supporters precisely because they believed all that garbage, or at least wanted to believe it. Ditching Balls would be the final admission that Osborne was right all along - and therefore that Labour were completely wrong. That's not a good platform for an election campaign where the public finances will still be centre-stage.
Well Labour are certainly going to need someone like that going into GE 2015.
If he is demoted it will be too damaging politically - details don't matter - the public will just get the message that "Labour is conceding it was wrong".
It's exactly the same situation as when people were saying Cameron should sack Osborne.
It doesn't matter that the replacement would do better / come across better - only a tiny % of people are voting on their judgement of how the Shadow Chancellor comes across.
Mike is not trying to become the next CoE though.
To be honest I'm quite relieved Darling is tied up north of the border for so long. I'm sure Shadsy will give us a price on Chris Leslie but could well not be value as he knows pb.com as a whole generally knows its stuff.
Welcome to PB... you'll fit right in.
That said, if Darling helps to win the Scottish referendum for the Unionist's then it provides a way for him to come back as shadow Chancellor without it appearing as though Miliband is desperately casting about for someone to do the job - it can be said that Balls was just keeping the seat warm for him while he saved the Union.
Problem is that the electoral politics is arguably even worse with Darling as shadow Chancellor, because although it largely wasn't his fault, it was he who presided over the uber-crash.
Leslie was responsible for the postal voting shambles in the 2004 Euro-elections and has a much better record at playing Labour's internal politics than he does in delivery of anything meaningful. Of course, being adept at playing the internal politics is very helpful in being appointed to what's essentially a patronage position but he has little following in the PLP or wider party and others who have more backing in pushing their claim will surely be further forward in the queue.
In any case, with Balls, as with Brown before him, the pain of moving him probably outweighs the benefits that would accrue from such a move. Does anyone think he'd go quietly?
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CARDIFF - Riverside (Labour resigned)
CARDIFF - Splott (Labour resigned)
UKIP will be contesting these two strong Labour Cardiff seats in the by-elections due tonight.
It will be the first time that UKIP is contesting these seats, it will be interesting to see if they make any impact in one of Labours Welsh heartlands.
Like Ed Balls, your hyperbole is letting you down.
Yes there are problems with the housing market, and yes the recovery isn't reaching the people it should. But the latest PMI surveys show that manufacturing, services and construction are all accelerating rapidly. There's obviously some real juice in this recovery.
Should he nevertheless do it? It would feed a narrative that Labour had got the economy completely wrong, which would be more damaging than having an unattractive character as shadow Chancellor.
So Labour are stuck with Ed Balls now.
Ed Balls might go quietly if his replacement was his wife.
Would she be any good?
How would the nepotism be played out. Worse than or as bad as a chumocracy?
Would she be popular in the role (maybe a more important question than would she be any good)?
I think he's staying.
The key Labour error was not to understand (because they believed that retaining sterling insulated against the possibility) that UK borrowing rates would have risen dramatically had there not been a clear "austerity" commitment.
But that aside, policy following GE2010 was the mother of all "I wouldn't have started from here" scenarios.
This of course doesn't absolve the Cons for picking the housing market as a "growth" driver but they couldn't have done all that good infrastructure stuff in June 2010 because the markets would have said "not so fast" and then promptly added 300bps to our 10-year borrowing rates.
Middle class yuppies in Splott?? Blimey, times have changed...
Straw, Brown, Balls, Cooper, Darling, Purnell, Blair, Reid, Clarke, Blunkett, Prescott, Millband snr and Postie, all seem neutered.
Harman, Burnham are slaloming along in a undirected alternative universe with odd pronouncements.
Then there is EdM, bravely holding it all together promoting the vision of a fair Labour England to all who will be beguiled by his smooth rhetoric.
Where have the class of 2005 to 2010 gone?
& the middle class yuppies as well come to that!
Also, borrowing as a % of GDP is prety much back on the 2011 track: https://twitter.com/RobinWigg/status/407815271907606528/photo/1
and borrowing was only low in 2009-10 because the markets expected a government with some responsibility to come to the helm.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/iainmartin1/100249249/autumn-statement-game-set-and-match-for-osborne/
The point about Greece is that the government has always spent the absolute maximum they could get their hands on. The only reductions they have made is due to having absolutely no choice about having to cut. They are the perfect example of what happens if you don't cut before the markets turn against you.
My point is that by several measures including size of deficit and debt/GDP ratios we were way towards the bottom of our european peers and the markets weren't in the mood to tolerate profligate fiscal programmes.
The "evidence" is that we could run those type of ratios and not be overly penalised. Even today of course our debt/GDP ratio is relatively pretty ugly and although our borrowing rates have ticked up, this is more as an expectation of stronger economic growth rather than any kind of premium demanded for lending to us.
St Eck is infallible and all his utterances are literal gospel truth...
@TomHarrisMP: An independent Scotland will change the names of "Starburst" and "Snickers" bars back to "Opal Fruits" and "Marathon". White Paper p377.
TNS BMRB published today 5 Dec
Sample size 1,004 adults aged 16+ in Scotland
Fieldwork dates 20th – 27th November 2013
Interview method Face-to-face, in-home
Females: Yes 22% No 45% DK 33%
Males: Yes 30% No 39% DK 31%
http://www.tns-bmrb.co.uk/assets-uploaded/documents/som-data-tables-27-nov-2013_1386178151.pdf
He used to say a quarter, then he suddenly switched to a third - I reckon he'll be saying a half some time in 2014.
Mr. Dickson, is it now SNP policy, in the event of a No vote, to hold another referendum within 15 years [assuming that fits with electoral reality at the time]?
Things like this are only important if the media make a fuss about it. They might do but they probably won't.
The most sobering stat in that article is the number that UK public debt in 2007 was 500bn.
Whoever you believe is at fault, the fact remains that the decade 2007/2017 will have cost the British people a trillion pounds.
There were comments by the agencies put out before the election that if Labour’s spending plans continued unchanged, a ratings cut was inevitable. Now, you can say that there was a ratings cut anyway and you’d be right. Borrowing costs have also risen – a not unrelated event. And that’s despite spending restraint and a recovery now underway. Had Brown continued in office with Balls as chancellor – as everyone, including Darling, expected to happen if Labour won – the rating cuts would have happened sooner and faster, and borrowing costs risen further and sooner.
"Osborne’s peroration is worth quoting in full – it just kept coming, a relentlessly personal attack.
"“They can’t talk about their record because they had the biggest recession ever.
They can’t talk about the deficit because they’ve got no plan to deal with it.
He can’t talk about infrastructure and his much vaunted plan for a cross-party consensus because he was the person who tried to break the consensus on the biggest project of all.
He can’t talk about housing because there were 420,000 fewer affordable homes at the end of the Labour government.
He can’t talk about business rates because they went up 71 per cent under Labour.
He can’t talk about support for business because he wants to put taxes up on business.
He can’t ask about standing up to the powerful because this is the week they caved in to the trade unions.
He can’t ask about jobs because he wants more jobs taxes.
And he can’t ask about banking and financial services because the person they hired to advise them was the Reverend Flowers.”
And Balls’ only response was to point and go “Ooooo!” as if to suggest Osborne and Cameron had taken cocaine themselves.
It was far from a complete response to a massive reputational attack.
Can Labour go into an election with a liability like this? Osborne must be hoping they can."
http://order-order.com/2013/12/05/sketch-the-end-of-an-error-new-balls-please/#more-155944
Which I can forgive as they have been fed it by their beloved Eds.
What I cannot forgive is EdB, a former Harvard economics fellow, spinning such transparent bollocks.
Absolutely. The darling plan had about as much credibility as a rehab program designed by an addict.
If Labour had just got back in and continued to do exactly what caused the problem in the first place a bit longer then everything would have been alright. Makes perfect sense.
Hmmm.
http://t.co/SF8NfIQINw
Of course, if the Scots vote for independence one can be sure that there won't be a referendum for renewing the Union in any length of time, let alone 15 years.
I was pointing out that Labour supporters have convinced themselves things were going well in 2010 despite all the evidence to the contrary. They think that even more government spending was the answer to the debt disaster caused by the biggest government spending splurge of all time.
Idiots.
Sad that little Tories like you live just to denegrate the country they live in, full of glee hoping for disaster to strike.
Pity you are so thick that if revenue did decline it would decline for the UK as well twat and so is it better we get 100% of a declining revenue or as we do now get 0% of a declining revenue. Pray tell us about this union benefit.
It wouldn't surprise me at all if the same thing happened again when Labour drop the referendum bill (which of course they will even though they will once again be committed to holding one in their manifesto).
The low paid taxed at 84 - 95%...
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2013/12/brits-are-not-lazy-ms-campeanu-theyre-just-taxed-to-death/
That's a winner Malc.
Osborne is the man who
did nothing on a boat
bought a train ticket
got out of a car
ate a burger
cried at a funeral
is presiding over the (2nd) fastest recovery in the developed World
What a liability
Woeful or Wonderful?
You really must be more careful about the tweets you select for posting on PB.
Apart from the obvious warning sign that a return to 2007 house price levels cannot possibly mean a 3 percent gap in real terms (cumulative inflation at 3% over six years??), there is no evidence in the OBR EFO of the levels of house price growth forecasts you have claimed.
Here are the correct figures: There is nothing in these forecasts which should ring any alarms.
So Scotland will simply get their "share" (a lot less than 100%).
Fields found after independence would be treated differently.
There is even an arrow with "Income tax - 20%" pointing at about £6,000!
Need to get the basics right - I'm afraid destroys credibility of article as if that's wrong, what else is wrong?
Exactly the same as someone posting on here a few weeks ago that higher rate tax starts at £32k.
He was £100Bn+ out on his 2008 forecasts 12 months later.
Anyone who thinks he would be on the same page as his 2010 forecast is deluded.