John B, you are exactly right! Ed Balls simply cannot promise to spend money in 2015 when he does not know what the public finances will look like kn 2015. William Hague made that mistake in 2001, and look what happened to him in 2001.

i Agree.

write-on
'Why couldn't Labour promise the moon and then when they get into power and examine the books, change their minds and policies? '

er, cos if after 5 years of austerity and global GDP crashes, u'd look pretty dumb if u came into power and then said-"we've had a look at the books and it's not good..."

What still puzzles me, (though the answer is probably staring me in the face, perhaps I'm chosing not to recognise it?) is how can the government's economic strategy, which has been proven not to work over and over again, in relation to slumps and how get our of them, how can a spectacularly bad set of policies, be labled... credible? And, it gets worse, if one indicates that one is sceptical about a successful outcome based on cutting wages and investment, this, automatically is called not credible.

Voicing the opinion that there might possibly be an alternative to massive cuts that undermine demand, is characterised as "left-wing", and mentioning the disaterous road we're on in public is called "populist" and "unrealistic."

Is this because the rich and powerful still, and increasingly, run society and politics? Look at Cameron, Osborne, and Clegg... for example. They, and people even more fabulously wealthy, have the power to define what is "credible" "realistic" and what isn't. Because they benefit and are core participants in what we call "The Market" which really means the concentration of wealth and power in society in a handful of people's hands, in a system which structurally disenfranchises the majority of the population, and robs them of not just wealth, but power to.

Even today there's been a transfer of society's wealth upwards, the baillout of the financial sector, which has arguably no historical parallel, and that's really saying something after the last thirty years of class-warfare and looting of the collective wealth of the country.

Labour's position is folly. When Coalition's economic fantasy is over Labour will be seen - as if not a supporter - then an appeaser for it. Why do that when you know the incumbents will be totally discredited at the end of this parliament?

None of the parties is credible. If Miliband had a any sense at all he'd work on undermining the government's gift to the nation - "expansionary austerity" - which is going to fail everywhere - and get on with drawing up some serious infrastructure projects countrywide which Labour could lay down on election (?) to get unemployment down and the economy moving again. Anything else is more fantasy.

In all likelihood Miliband will inherit a Britain not unlike the depression-hit one of the '30s which was rescued not by private sector-inspired investment but state-demand in the form of armament. The private sector likes a home banker. In early 1939, after an injection of funds from the Treasury (£250m) - unemployment fell by 500,000 in a matter of months.

This country needs some serious infrastructure projects (not just in London) which will prepare it for the future and get us out of this depressive and dumb cycle.

The laissez faire options on offer - which commit us to waiting for the dust to settle (i.e. we stop falling) - are so destructive and lengthy they are laughable.

There are some interesting points in teh article but I'm still inclined to agree with McCluskey.

My difficulty is with people who present Balls' volte-face as not a volte-face. It is. He has performed a massive u-turn on his previous (correct position). I'm sorry but saying he won't reverse the cuts is in practical terms the same as accepting them. I'm sure even the Tories will say that they don't want to make them.

Short term electoral expediency isn't a valid reason to let down the people who look to the Labour Party to defend their interests.

More from the Mambo here:

http://representingthemambo.wordpress.com/2012/01/15/so-what-did-ed-ball...

If Balls thinks the deficit is an increasing problem, fair enough. But that doesn't mean he should endorse the current cuts programme, which is undeniably ideological. Where is his plan for alternative cuts that don't heap the burden onto the disabled, old and poor? Why does a need to reduce the deficit mean community centres, SureStart centres and libraries must stay closed, charities must receive less subsidies and more people must be marginalised? If the Party had any spine left, they'd be advocating scrapping Trident, the Robin Hood Tax, a 60p tax rate for the rich, or at least one off tax levees -- anything to ease the burden that these cuts will be making on those who can shoulder the least. That they're not is a damning condemnation of their simpering acceptance of the ConDemNation.

What is the point of voting Labour if they are simply going to implement failed ConDem policy - however reluctantly?

Balls has done more damage to the Labour movement than all the right wing media added together. Has economic credibility been restored as it Balls!

Does that McClusky chap think this is a 1970's type battle like the type between Arthur Scargill and Thatcher.
Labou is led by it's politicians not union leaders, I think what has happened in Europe was a wake up call for Mr Balls, Labour really needs to be credible not popular, prehaps being popular was more important in the beginning when no one knew Ed, but i think they have had to wake up and smell the coffeeand Labour need to 'unite' behind it's leader or find a new one!
Dear Mr McClusky when one of your four horsemen of the austerity apocalype a certain Mr Liam Byrne lrft his note saying 'there is no money left' he was not joking and you also do not own the Labour Party or Ed Miliband and given the choice Labour Voters will always put their political Leaders first and if you dont like it, take your funding and give it to Caroline Lucas ( I dare you!)

I don't think McClusky has listened to what Ed and Ed are saying: they don't believe in austerity, and still believe in deficit spending.

The extra spending in 2015 will be directed to boost jobs and growth in the best way possible at that time, *not* merely to reverse some cuts that happened way back in 2012.

But Keynes, who some people seem to believe was mentored by Trotsky, was right, one cannot "cut" or "save" one's way out of an economic slump, that road only leads to more unemployment, less demand, lower growth, falling tax revenues, and a rising deficit as a proportion of GDP. In other words a vicious downward economic spiral. Is that the path one really wants to follow?

New Labour accepts the same basic premises the other parties adhere to for realigning the UK economy, which are a combination of cuts and making the UK more competitive. More competitive is code for cutting wages.

But where will the demand come, the growth, from if one cuts both expenditure and wages? This is just one of the structural problems built into the economic model the major parties have followed for decades, effectively undermining the foundations of the entire productive industrial, manufacturing economy, whilst diverting vital resources and power to the City of London.

Surely the UK's economic strategy should be based on more than what's good for the City? Only, tragically, it isn't.

We will never get out of the slump if we become mezmerised with the threat of the deficit instead of analysing the structural problems that have caused the deficit in the first place, and that is because the UK's economy is fundamentally unbalanced in favour of the financial sector which is too big compared to manufacturing.

The problem is after going down the wrong road for thirty years it's difficult as hell to reverse, a sensible, rational, economic policy would never have led us to a dead-end in the first place. So we're stuck and there are no good options available and no magic bullets.

But as start would be to stop following this incompetent, dogmatic, group of ideologues, in the government who are only making things worse. That Labour is labled not credible, but the government's strategy is seen as credibly, is a mystery to me. How can a policy of cuts in a slump, which have been proven by history not to work, be called credible?

But to oppose the government would require Labour to have an alternative economic strategy, and, supposedly, it doesn't exist, not even in theory. Our options are severely limited to reducing the deficit at almost any cost. That the strategy for reducing the deficit strangles the rest of the economy and ultimately worsens the deficit seems of secondary importance.