View all newsletters
Sign up to our newsletters

Support 110 years of independent journalism.

  1. Business
6 March 2013updated 22 Oct 2020 3:55pm

Ed Balls rails against cuts to manufacturing

“Curtailing ambition”.

By Fred Crawley

Ed Balls used his address to yesterday’s EEF Manufacturing Conference, perhaps unsurprisingly, as a platform to rail against spending cuts in advance of the delivery of the budget in two weeks’ time.

Playing straight to his manufacturer audience’s fear of Britain sliding into industrial obscurity, he warned that the government’s obsession with deficit reduction at the expense of long-term investment would “curtail ambition” in business and “militate against” the UK’s ability to compete with Europe (read, Germany).

His appearance at the conference coincided with the publication today of a labour-commissioned report by Sir George Cox, Overcoming short-termism within British business, which argues for executive pay to reflect success over longer cycles, tax changes to favour equity markets, and a mechanism to make infrastructure investment decisions independent of political cycles.

Despite a fantastically awkward bit of audience Q&A, in which Balls avoided verbally signing his party up to Sir George’s proposals even though the report author was sitting just feet away in the front row, the rhetoric seemed to go over well with delegates.

But in terms of a demonstration of long term-thinking, the Sturm & Drang over the budget’s treatment of British business paled in comparison to the day’s opening presentation, delivered by Jim “BRICs” O’Neill, Goldman Sachs’ chairman of asset management.

Select and enter your email address Your weekly guide to the best writing on ideas, politics, books and culture every Saturday. The best way to sign up for The Saturday Read is via saturdayread.substack.com The New Statesman's quick and essential guide to the news and politics of the day. The best way to sign up for Morning Call is via morningcall.substack.com Our Thursday ideas newsletter, delving into philosophy, criticism, and intellectual history. The best way to sign up for The Salvo is via thesalvo.substack.com Stay up to date with NS events, subscription offers & updates. Weekly analysis of the shift to a new economy from the New Statesman's Spotlight on Policy team. The best way to sign up for The Green Transition is via spotlightonpolicy.substack.com
  • Administration / Office
  • Arts and Culture
  • Board Member
  • Business / Corporate Services
  • Client / Customer Services
  • Communications
  • Construction, Works, Engineering
  • Education, Curriculum and Teaching
  • Environment, Conservation and NRM
  • Facility / Grounds Management and Maintenance
  • Finance Management
  • Health - Medical and Nursing Management
  • HR, Training and Organisational Development
  • Information and Communications Technology
  • Information Services, Statistics, Records, Archives
  • Infrastructure Management - Transport, Utilities
  • Legal Officers and Practitioners
  • Librarians and Library Management
  • Management
  • Marketing
  • OH&S, Risk Management
  • Operations Management
  • Planning, Policy, Strategy
  • Printing, Design, Publishing, Web
  • Projects, Programs and Advisors
  • Property, Assets and Fleet Management
  • Public Relations and Media
  • Purchasing and Procurement
  • Quality Management
  • Science and Technical Research and Development
  • Security and Law Enforcement
  • Service Delivery
  • Sport and Recreation
  • Travel, Accommodation, Tourism
  • Wellbeing, Community / Social Services
Visit our privacy Policy for more information about our services, how New Statesman Media Group may use, process and share your personal data, including information on your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications.
THANK YOU

As one might expect from the man who coined the now ubiquitous acronym for emerging markets, O’Neill had very little to say directly about the state of British industry, and even the UK’s fortunes in the context of the Eurozone crisis.

Instead he spoke frankly, and backed by some very big statistics, about the overwhelming importance of emerging markets, particularly China, to both the UK and world economies over the decades to come.

Professing himself to be an optimist, O’Neill predicted the world economy would grow close to 4 per cent in the current decade, largely thanks to China which, he reminded us in words notoriously borrowed by David Cameron, grows the equivalent of Greek GDP every twelve and a half weeks. To underscore the point, O’Neill mentioned in passing that China had, since the end of 2010, grown by approximately the current size of the Indian economy.

He said that if the US and China could partially reverse their traditional roles with regard to production and consumption, so that China ended up “spending more and producing less” and the US vice versa, “it would be a very good sign – and this appears to be happening.”

In response to audience anxiety over the Eurozone, he acknowledged that while Europe was still the single most important export region for the UK, the percentage of UK exports going to the Eurozone had fallen from 55 per cent to 45 per cent over the last decade, and would likely fall further to 39 per cent by 2020.

By the same point time, he argued, 17 per cent of UK exports will likely be destined for the BRICs, while Germany will probably be exporting twice as much to China as to France. If we had known that in the early 1990s, he posited, there might never have been a Eurozone in the first place.

When drawn by session chair Krishnan Guru-Murthy on what he would do if he were chancellor in two weeks, his answer said more through understatement than Balls did through twenty minutes on the soapbox:

“Those nations with more emphasis on long-term fiscal consolidation rather than a “cut debt now” mentality tend to be recovering better… It’s entirely understandable to want to lower debt and to shrink [the financial services] sector… but trying to do both at once? It could be very difficult, and I think I’ll leave it at that”.

Content from our partners
Development finance reform: the key to climate action
Individually rare, collectively common – how do we transform the lives of people with rare diseases?
Future proofing the NHS

Select and enter your email address Your weekly guide to the best writing on ideas, politics, books and culture every Saturday. The best way to sign up for The Saturday Read is via saturdayread.substack.com The New Statesman's quick and essential guide to the news and politics of the day. The best way to sign up for Morning Call is via morningcall.substack.com Our Thursday ideas newsletter, delving into philosophy, criticism, and intellectual history. The best way to sign up for The Salvo is via thesalvo.substack.com Stay up to date with NS events, subscription offers & updates. Weekly analysis of the shift to a new economy from the New Statesman's Spotlight on Policy team. The best way to sign up for The Green Transition is via spotlightonpolicy.substack.com
  • Administration / Office
  • Arts and Culture
  • Board Member
  • Business / Corporate Services
  • Client / Customer Services
  • Communications
  • Construction, Works, Engineering
  • Education, Curriculum and Teaching
  • Environment, Conservation and NRM
  • Facility / Grounds Management and Maintenance
  • Finance Management
  • Health - Medical and Nursing Management
  • HR, Training and Organisational Development
  • Information and Communications Technology
  • Information Services, Statistics, Records, Archives
  • Infrastructure Management - Transport, Utilities
  • Legal Officers and Practitioners
  • Librarians and Library Management
  • Management
  • Marketing
  • OH&S, Risk Management
  • Operations Management
  • Planning, Policy, Strategy
  • Printing, Design, Publishing, Web
  • Projects, Programs and Advisors
  • Property, Assets and Fleet Management
  • Public Relations and Media
  • Purchasing and Procurement
  • Quality Management
  • Science and Technical Research and Development
  • Security and Law Enforcement
  • Service Delivery
  • Sport and Recreation
  • Travel, Accommodation, Tourism
  • Wellbeing, Community / Social Services
Visit our privacy Policy for more information about our services, how New Statesman Media Group may use, process and share your personal data, including information on your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications.
THANK YOU