I am a fan of the World at One news programme on BBC Radio 4, and listen to it with interest on holidays and on Saturdays. I’m one of those people who yells at the radio in disagreement, or applauds the speaker as the situation demands (and yes, I know the radio announcer can’t actually hear me!). And the fact is, I usually hear the name ‘Ed Balls’ and prepare to murmur agreement with the shrewd ideas of the Shadow Chancellor.
Unfortunately, I didn’t anticipate the panic that Labour’s slip in the polls has caused in the distant leadership of the my party. Now that a poll lead of 11 points has fallen to 7 points, in what was a temporary fluctuation, the two Eds are issuing a flurry of policy announcements, designed to prove One Nation Labour’s ‘responsibility’ on matters such as the budget deficit and the welfare state. The latter topic will be the center of a speech by Miliband on Thursday- and I would like to issue the sternest warning to a politician I generally approve of that much of the party will rightly oppose cruel cuts, whichever party advocates them- but Ed Balls sketched out some more of his spending plans yesterday, which caused me to groan in a way I haven’t since I got my latest mock exam grade.
The news is grave. The next government will maintain the Coalition’s day-to-day expenditure limits until 2016, with any increases in one area being matched with cuts in another. Given the fact that the Coalition has pencilled in cuts until 2017, in practice this means we’re discussing redistribution of the same spending cuts. Proposed tax rises will support investment programmes, deficit reduction, the Jobs Guarantee and reducing future spending cuts. Public services will deteriorate with a similar rapidity under Labour than they would under the Coalition. Though there remains a huge move in the right direction promised by Miliband in a number of areas (think predistribution, carbon capture, energy, fare and rent controls, living wage zones, NHS renationalisation, the graduate tax, etc…) a number of moves towards a better society will be hampered without the ability to increase public expenditure, however short-term that inability may be.
But worst of all, Ed Balls has pledged to withdraw the Winter Fuel Allowance, which is an annual payment worth £200 or so, from pensioners who are higher rate taxpayers. As ever, the march to undermine universality in our welfare system continues, with consequences I shall discuss later in the week, after Ed Miliband proposes more cuts.