Stuart it seems your so way off the mark, I am wincing your uncomfortable post.

Let's just revisit the facts dear friend, Indu Pendent fails to back up his " argument " with a fact, unlike me.

He doesn't have the backbone to defend his own comments and the intelligence to remember them. What a awful show.

Your always in a mood Luddite, normally it is angry.

I wish you would lay off the cheap alcohol and find peace within your cold, empty heart.

It seems to me that local initiatives are of little use when the real dangers come from the US and Eurozone's problems.

The key here is to look at showing leadership and working with other nations -- exactly what we did in 2008.

The Labour's mess line is flimsy, most intelligent voters recognise that we face global threats - by moving the debate to leadership and coordinated action they change the terms of the debate, in the same way the focus on Growth has resonated and highlighted the one-eyed failings of the current Chancellor.

The electorate deserve more respect and a 'grown-up' plan which moves away from tribal politics and petty point-scoring and towards a credible action plan with support from political partners is much better than a plan which gets grudging support from cronies in the IMF and donors righting letters to the telegraph.

Its pointless for Labour to prduce a detailed plan because the Coalition will simply ignore it and carry on regardless until 2015 when they will face the wrath of the electorate.
Balls has spelt out the outline of the plan anyway and its up to the public to accept or reject that that outline. Thae public are not that sphisticated anyway when it comes to financial details. The Budget Books are pretty meaningless to most of us only the financial pundits understand the intricacies and journalists put it into commonspeak.
What it boils down to is who can deliver confidence in the longterm economy. Is it the novices in this Coalition or Balls with his vast experience in coping with huge economic problems. I think most would agree that Ed M inspires very little confidence.
The key also lies in America; if America goes down we go down as well whoever is in Govt.

Actually it doesn't matter a row of eans what Labour says it will do. Labour is as irrelevant as the Greens or th BNP. A the moment there is only one show in town and we've got it. And it probably dosn't matter what THEY do either. Britain is irrelevant too. The USA and the Eurozone will cock things up and we have to wait until they have finished doing that.

@matt

Fox, when you hid away and did not scrutinise your friends, are you sure they did not pull the fox fury over your eyes?

Have you been reading the breaking news about how Ed Balls "sexed up" the treasury forecasts so that the government could borrow more before 2008 against fabricated data?

I always knew there was corruption involved to Labours fiscal policy. And now we might potentially find criminal corruption.

You never did answer my question - should borrowing be increased or decreased (in other ways is EM or EB your leader).

Yes Labour has a problem, it has been defined as a party of economic incompetence,financial profligacy ans recession. The fact that Ed Balls had intimate involvement in the discredited economic policies of the last goverment and for that man to still be there is a fatal weakness of the shadow cabernet and one that all the promises and reforms in the world will not change.
It is also wrong for Ed Miliband to refuse to condemn the economic mistakes of the last goverment- how will he learn! Ed miliband remains in his comfort zone throwing stones at the goverment,at the same time remaining quiet about what he would do,he remains vague and uninterested, shadow cabernets in the past were allowed to remain quiet but considering the last goverment was responsible for the majority of the problems we have that is a luxury they cannot have, you earn trust! there mantra of too far too fast as Nick Clegg said should be replaced with too slow too late. At least George osborne has a plan and im sure he will take a diversion if he needs to, Ed has a blank page,Ed Balls and a sack full of stones to throw at the Goverment aimed at every reform even ones started by Labour themselves!

H3TT WESamira shows such political naivity, it is troubling.

Samira, parties in opposition do not publish, as you put; 'a detailed, solid plan about exactly what they would do differently'. They provide an outline of their policies until the elections are eminent.

Cameron did exactly the same. Their policy announcements were mostlt Labour policies leaked to them by the well known 'Traitors' in the Labour cabinet who were then trying to undermine Brown. Unfortunately the lazy press repeated the Tories talking points; that Labour stealing their ideas.

Samira, please stop repeating the DEM-CONS's talking points and stop undermining the Labour leadership.

Despite this being a two-tone government most of the hard-core policies being put into place are Tory in origin and are being implemented with thorough Conservative ruthlessness.
The Lib|Dems are plainly the hind-quarters of this pantomime horse of a government.
Rather surprisingly the Tory High Command and its LibDem orderlies ( not batman - as there is bound to be a misunderstanding ) keep trotting out Lord Keynes oldput-down. "When the facts change I change my mind. What do you do?"
Obviously, this is used by the right as a prod to irritate the Labour side and cause them to blurt out their economic policy and response to the 'cuts'. Correct rejoinder.
"Certainly not what you're doing!" When pressed - "Never stop your opponent when they are making a mistake! And don't give them the solution!"
Conservative polices and Liberal excuses. Something of an inalienable contradiction; but then just think of the Euro and its pros and cons.

Hard Ball

"Everyone agrees that the party needs to spell out a clear alternative to the coalition's cuts"

God, I luv that sentence: shows how inbred the NS hacks are.

Er, I don't. Labour deliberately created this bloated, inefficient, massively over manned public sector as a YTS scheme and as a source of clientelist Labour voters.

Cut, baby cut.

labour had good credibility in the early years when he was known as the iron chancellor, but after a few years he went off the rails, the goal posts of the golden rules were changed to suit. they had the best circumstances and backdrop i.e. one of the largest and longest housing and finance booms in living memory.

what labour need to do is provide cast iron guarantee's that we will follow the golden rules, we won't change the rules and we will run budget surpluses in good times so that when the bad times come we can whether the storms better.

Labour's "economic credibility" problem will not go away with Ed Ball's still in the frame.
Mr Balls was instrumental in hiking up spending beyond sensible levels which resulted in a substantial waste of public money. Everyone agrees that the party needs to spell out a clear alternative to the coalition's cuts. So what did Mr Miliband propose, a hike in corporation tax, which is in affect, simply a tax on jobs. That's the last thing our economy needs. Milliband went on to promise a cut in tuition fees same old Labour the electorate will say. Tax and squander. No change there! What Labour needs is a clarity of purpose. We simply didn't have that with this present leadership.

All taxes companies pay is a tax on jobs, whether that's business rates corporation tax or national insurance tax. We all fully understand the need to pay tax, but were Labour fails is, in the credibility rating on how to spend them taxes wisely, and for the long term good of all. Simply taxing the productive part of our economy in order to inflate the pubic sector is no longer a affordable, and Ed Milliband should be honest enough to say that.

matthew fox

It's you who are dodging answering Indu Pendent's question.

The sad fact is that mostly people have looked at Ed Balls and would rather not vote for a party that he belongs to, get rid.

Hello 1%. Walter Mitty tendencies flow from your mouth. It's often said. Empty vessels make the most noise. "But moving swiftly on" So what exactly did New Labour do for hard working folk's? Answers on a postcard!! Look here 1% after doing jack-shit for industry Milliband starts farting on about investing in the future. Now in all honesty who's going to take Labour seriously with Ed Ball's looking over Gonzo's shoulder's. The same Ed Balls that was so instrumental in hiking up spending beyond sensible levels which resulted in a substantial waste of public money.