Labour's new leader

By the time this blog ‘goes to press’ the Labour Party will have a new leader. He or she will soon name their Shadow Cabinet and it might be that Ed Balls will have been named Shadow Chancellor. He was Adviser to Gordon Brown when the prudent Scot was resident in The Treasury, so he knows his economics and his politics.

What will any Shadow Chancellor do as we await the deepest cuts in public spending in living memory? The UK economy has shrunk by approximately 6% and the coalition has decided that it must cut now and in depth. Prior to leaving office the Labour Party had advocated a reduction in the public sector deficit by 50 % over four years. The Liberal Democrats warned of cutting too quickly and yet now their leader, Nic Clegg seems to support faster and deeper cuts than when he campaigned in May of this year.

So, how will the incoming Shadow Chancellor take on the inevitable need to reduce public expenditure? Let’s think strategy:

• They will need to dispel the current blame culture of the coalition that all the debt is the fault of the previous government – in fairness the world went into financial meltdown and can any of us really imagine a scenario where the banks failed? It’s convenience politics to blame everything on the previous government BUT can the new Shadow Chancellor risk focusing on a argument that might re-new public awareness of some of the failings of the previous government – such as an over reliance on the financial sector?

• The Liberals are a soft target – amongst their members is a growing concern that they are being used by the Tories to sell policies the proper Chancellor knows are not very appealing to the general public. Mr Clegg looked less than confident at the party conference when he tried to persuade the doubters within the hall that power is essential for Liberal values to be made policy and that when in office difficult decisions have to be made. Too many of his local councillors and others are feeling the heat when they knock on doors and fear that at the next round of elections they will be punished for saying one thing when fighting an election and doing another when in government.

• What of the Tories – well they said that the cuts had to be deep, though after a fall in their popularity in January when Mr Osborne started to outline potential areas for cuts they were not specific when campaigning in April and May. The ‘is it ideology or sensible economics’ line may have some mileage with the electorate but that tends to be a debate for those in the Westminster village and other politicos.

• So, as so often in both politics and economics the word ‘fair’ enters the arena. If it is Ed Balls who takes on the role then don’t forget ‘the wife’ Yvette Cooper, who might continue to Shadow Work and Pensions. If she does it is already noticeable that Messrs Osborne and Duncan Smith are not exactly finding much to agree on and the combined efforts of Mr and Mrs Balls might be quite a force within and without the walls of the House of Commons. This is probably going to be a major line of attack for Labour but they will need to be careful that they are not asked to say what they would have done; else the answer may look rather close to what the Tories are proposing.

Finally, whichever Milliband brother it is who emerges as the new leader they will have to quickly get at David Cameron, who is fast taking on Blair’s ‘Teflon’ appearance in the House of Commons. The PMQ’s may entertain many Americans but to those sitting behind the main players it is the opportunity to see their man score some big hits. Brown seldom did and so Cameron began to look a better politician than even he believed he was.

It’s going to be an interesting autumn.