In an interview in today’s Times (£), Ed Balls reveals that Ed Miliband has not guaranteed that he will be shadow chancellor at the next election. He tells the paper: “I’ve never asked him. It’s a bit arrogant thinking about what sort of job you do.”
There is nothing unusual about this (leaders always give themselves maximum flexibility) but it will encourage speculation that Balls could be moved before 2015. His below-par response to the Autumn Statement, which he compared to a top footballer missing a penalty, has emboldened those in the party who believe Miliband was wrong to give him the job in the first place. One proposal doing the rounds is for Alistair Darling, fresh from leading the unionist camp to victory in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, to return as shadow chancellor in time for the election. Balls will still almost certainly remain in his post (the right decision, in my view) but it’s no longer unthinkable that he could accept a different job.
Elsewhere in the interview, Balls suggests that economic volatility means Labour will hold back its major fiscal decisions until the year of the election. “Until we know the state of the economy, the state of the public finances and how bad things have turned out, it’s very hard for us to know what we can possibly say.”
With a Spending Review due to be held next year, George Osborne will begin to challenge Labour to say whether it would stick to the Conservatives’ spending plans for the opening years of the next parliament, as it did in 1997. Balls, one of the architects of the ’97 pledge, is keen to keep this option open, but his words are an indication that he won’t be making a decision anytime soon. With forecast borrowing revised up by £212bn since 2010, it’s not hard to see why.
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