Labour loses the plot
What does it say about the Labour party when Ed Balls' speech today showed too much knowledge of the real world to go down well with them?
I will have some more things to say tomorrow about the things which were wrong with Ed Ball's speech to Labour Party conference, but the worst thing about it is how it was unpopular with delegates for being too realistic. Whike I do not agree with everything in the blog post from Dan Hodges today, in which he argued that
"The size of the financial black hole is incomprehensible so Labour has opted not to comprehend it."
Dan does make some very telling points.
The present government inherited a totally unsustainable deficit, spending four pounds for every three coming in, a national debt on track to double to 1.2 trillion pounds and on which the interest was greater than the entire education budget.
After four years of so-called "austerity" which have certainly not been easy for people (though that has been mainly due to the economic slowdown the current administrationh inherited,) the deficit has been reduced by a third, which represents significant progress but is not nearly enough if we don't want our children and grandchildren to have to pay intolerable amounts of interest on a huge national debt.
As Hodges points out Balls nodded to the scale of the problem, and told the Labour party conference that if they win the next election they will inherit a deficit of £75 Billion.
Dan goes on:
"Just think about that figure for a moment: £75 billion. The Labour Party, if it were to win the next election, would have to close a gap the gap between what the nation earns and what it spends by £75 billion. “We will balance the books”, Ed Balls claimed. Well, to do that, he will have to bring into balance books that are £75,000,000,000 in the red.
He can’t do it. Ed Miliband can’t do it. No Labour Party politician can do it.
Before listening to his speech I caught Ed Balls' interview this morning on Sky. He was asked how much the various policies that Labour had announced to date would cut the deficit. After a bit of toing and froing, he conceded a figure of around £400 million. Or, to put it another way, 0.53 per cent of the total deficit Labour will be faced with if it comes to power. "
But even to get to this totally inadequate sum -
"To get to that position Ed Balls has had to risk his political career. He has fallen foul of the unions, who have branded him a “horseman of the austerity apocalypse” and agitated for his removal. He has fallen foul of his leader, who has been reluctant to sign up to any form of austerity at all. "And he hasn’t so much as faintly caressed an atom against the surface of the fiscal problems that Labour would inherit.
"
" ... you only had to stand in the hall and listen to the reaction to the second half of his speech. The pledge of “tough fiscal rules” was greeted with near silence. So was the statement “we will not make promises we cannot keep and cannot afford”. The commitment “we will stop paying the winter fuel allowance” was met with even stonier silence, until he added “to the richest five per cent of pensioners”. The announcement that Labour “will cap structural social security spending” saw him openly jeered.
Thirty years ago a prominent Conservative commented that "only in the Labour party could Denis Healey be considered the last defender of sanity."
It was true of the Labour chancellor then and it is true of Labour's shadow chancellor now.
I have a horrible fear that Dan is right that Labour is by its' very nature completely unable to cope with a financial situation such as the one that the country currently faces but cannot go along with his final conclusion that this is in some ways a good thing.
I hope and believe that the electorate will have the sense not to elect them, but would have more confidence did I not know that there are millions of people, most of whom are decent human beings in every respect other than their mindless tribal loyalty to the Labour party, who would still vote Labour if the party started machine-gunning nurses and organising the slaughter of the firstborn. The other problem is that, even if Labour lose, the fear of handing Labour the keys to Downing Street could easily inhibit whoever does form the next government from taking the tough measures the country needs.
I will have some more things to say tomorrow about the things which were wrong with Ed Ball's speech to Labour Party conference, but the worst thing about it is how it was unpopular with delegates for being too realistic. Whike I do not agree with everything in the blog post from Dan Hodges today, in which he argued that
"The size of the financial black hole is incomprehensible so Labour has opted not to comprehend it."
Dan does make some very telling points.
The present government inherited a totally unsustainable deficit, spending four pounds for every three coming in, a national debt on track to double to 1.2 trillion pounds and on which the interest was greater than the entire education budget.
After four years of so-called "austerity" which have certainly not been easy for people (though that has been mainly due to the economic slowdown the current administrationh inherited,) the deficit has been reduced by a third, which represents significant progress but is not nearly enough if we don't want our children and grandchildren to have to pay intolerable amounts of interest on a huge national debt.
As Hodges points out Balls nodded to the scale of the problem, and told the Labour party conference that if they win the next election they will inherit a deficit of £75 Billion.
Dan goes on:
"Just think about that figure for a moment: £75 billion. The Labour Party, if it were to win the next election, would have to close a gap the gap between what the nation earns and what it spends by £75 billion. “We will balance the books”, Ed Balls claimed. Well, to do that, he will have to bring into balance books that are £75,000,000,000 in the red.
He can’t do it. Ed Miliband can’t do it. No Labour Party politician can do it.
Before listening to his speech I caught Ed Balls' interview this morning on Sky. He was asked how much the various policies that Labour had announced to date would cut the deficit. After a bit of toing and froing, he conceded a figure of around £400 million. Or, to put it another way, 0.53 per cent of the total deficit Labour will be faced with if it comes to power. "
But even to get to this totally inadequate sum -
"To get to that position Ed Balls has had to risk his political career. He has fallen foul of the unions, who have branded him a “horseman of the austerity apocalypse” and agitated for his removal. He has fallen foul of his leader, who has been reluctant to sign up to any form of austerity at all. "And he hasn’t so much as faintly caressed an atom against the surface of the fiscal problems that Labour would inherit.
"
" ... you only had to stand in the hall and listen to the reaction to the second half of his speech. The pledge of “tough fiscal rules” was greeted with near silence. So was the statement “we will not make promises we cannot keep and cannot afford”. The commitment “we will stop paying the winter fuel allowance” was met with even stonier silence, until he added “to the richest five per cent of pensioners”. The announcement that Labour “will cap structural social security spending” saw him openly jeered.
Thirty years ago a prominent Conservative commented that "only in the Labour party could Denis Healey be considered the last defender of sanity."
It was true of the Labour chancellor then and it is true of Labour's shadow chancellor now.
I have a horrible fear that Dan is right that Labour is by its' very nature completely unable to cope with a financial situation such as the one that the country currently faces but cannot go along with his final conclusion that this is in some ways a good thing.
I hope and believe that the electorate will have the sense not to elect them, but would have more confidence did I not know that there are millions of people, most of whom are decent human beings in every respect other than their mindless tribal loyalty to the Labour party, who would still vote Labour if the party started machine-gunning nurses and organising the slaughter of the firstborn. The other problem is that, even if Labour lose, the fear of handing Labour the keys to Downing Street could easily inhibit whoever does form the next government from taking the tough measures the country needs.
Comments
Its good to learn things like this. You see Labour loses the plot came as news and a surprise to me. I never knew they had ever found it.
count their lucky stars they are not against me.
I am Like this:
1. take: Death, Pestilence, War and Faminine and mixed together in a mixing bowl.
2. fold in a lot of Satan himself.
3. Add a good pinch of the Antichris
4. bake in the oven on a high heat for 9 weeks
5. sprinkle the top with the Antichrist to garnish, and serve.