Ed Balls follows Ed Miliband's lead

denis cooper

What started out as a welfare "safety net" has been deliberately raised to entangle the majority of the population and turn them into dependents of the state to a greater or lesser degree, while creating a burden of form-filling for applicants and the need for yet more state employees to process the forms, often incorrectly.

Publius

Now if I were a Machiavellian schemer like Mandelson, I would advise David Miliband to get his brother Ed to stand in order to hoover up some of the votes that would otherwise go to Ed Balls.

As for this "progressive universalism" (i.e., making everyone a ward of the nanny state) it is a nauseating concept. Dear God! Haven't we seen enough of where this emasculating policy leads to, with the whole population reduced to timid serfdom, and decent people dragged off to police cells by the Thought Police.

Jeremy

Arguing about the allocation of non-existent resources somehow sounds very Labour, dosn't it?

"Both claim that it's important to make sure tax credits and other benefits reach those higher up the income scale."

Is this an example of the upper-middle class, trust-funded Hampstead Marxists seeking to look after their own? I thought that Labour was supposed to be the party of the working class. Silly me!

Bessie

They call it "progessive universalism"? Hmm.

I wonder if it ever occurs to them that, if one is better educated than any previous generation of one's family and earning a bigger salary than any previous generation, it's a bit humiliating to find out that one is eligible for means-tested benefits.

GDT

Hopefully the new legislation being passed by the coalition will prevent these bozoes getting back in for 5 years. Time to realign the constituencies and prevent them for a further 5 years.

KWCook

What in heaven's name is 'progressive universalism'?

TrevorsDen

hard to disagree with denis cooper on that one. If the middle classes are pulled i nto the benefits net - well just where is the money going to come from toi pay for it all. B alls conveniently forgets the 90 billion structural deficit he has bequeathed us.

But then Balls is a walking tautology.

John Goode

We should make it compulsory at GCSE to learn Finance and Law. All of us will have to deal with money and all of us are subject to the law.

This is not so that we raise a nation of accountants and lawyers but a citizenry that is less susceptable to such nonsense as "the end to boom & bust" "investments vs cuts" "reducing taxation removes money out of the economy"

Also our young need to be taught that incurring debt is not very clever unless you have a repayment plan that works.

Science Guy

Why should middle income earners get tax credits when it would be far more efficient for them to pay less tax in the first place?

The Preston Park Panther

It really is time to tell all the meddlers, complicators and witless parasites what they most need to hear: 'Keep your snatching little hands off our money, **** off and leave us alone'.

Kevyn Bodman

1)denis cooper is absolutely right.

2)Peter Hoskins:
why are you worried about dividing lines?
There should be dividing lines between political parties, argue for your policies in opposition to theirs.denis cooper has given you a good start on how to deal with 'progressive universalism'.

THX1138

I could never vote for a Lab party that had Ed Balls as leader. It's Brown all over again.. It's Ed Miliband for me!

Nicholas

I would comment but I'm too frightened of being stalked and lectured pompously and heavily by Citizen Ronnie, Chairman of the Coffee House Wall Christianity, Censorship and Courtesy Committee and/or his sidekick John Richardson who closely monitor the "track records" of those posting and pronounce so gravely on them.

PS I don't know if they sit in raised chairs and wear periwigs when they do this.

Gawain

All of the Labour candidates are in the same mould. Narrow minded technocrats. They are almost dalek like. The idea that they lost the election because the state benefits weren't pitched at the right people is barmy.

This country needs leadership at the moment not petty fogging bureaucrats enslaving all of us in a mad web of handouts, tax credits and entitlements. When a ship is holed below the waterline and listing badly you need a captain who shouts "you three plug the hole and the rest start baling". With Labour in charge the captain will be screaming "exterminate" at half the crew and holding a committee discussion with the rest on who is going to have the best seats on the lifeboat ! They don't care if the boat sinks. Labour is arguing itself into complete irrelevance.

Moraymint

These guys continue to live in Alice's Wonderland.

Give it 12 months, UK a la grecque (street riots), the euro in freefall, our European trading partners turning in on themselves, the BRIC countries growing rapidly and forcing up energy prices ... and we'll see how much room there is for the Labour Party to argue for yet more £billions of non-existent taxpayers' money and government debt to be chucked at their lunatic Marxist causes. Did they learn nothing from Brown's tenure?

It's clear to me now that only a socio-economic catastrophe in the UK (and probably across Europe) is going to make politicians realise that when governments try to spend money they don't have, whilst simultaneously propping up a corrupt and all-powerful banking industry (which is supposed to be lending dosh to the governments that are, er, propping up the banksters), then the world starts to disappear up its own exhaust pipe. It's happening already. Hello! It's happening already.

Sheesh, we're in for the toughest and most dangerous episode of our lives. The Great Depression will soon be heading into history as the Minor Depression. Meantime, so many elements of our political caste continue to spout ineffable bulls**t.

Notwithstanding, let's get on and look at changing the voting system, "progressive universalism", investment vs cuts, ditching nuclear power ... and all those very important things.

Guys ... time is running out. At times, one can imagine how Churchill must have felt in the build up to WWII.

Bickers

Don't Nu Labour & Balls get it - those of us are able to provide for ourselves and our familes don't need or want the State intefering in our lives. Government should be scaled back to do the basics; defence of the realm, basic infrastructure to enable society to go about its daily tasks e.g. roads, airports & rail and an education and health system, all backed up by the rule of law. After that just get off our backs and care for the genuinely most vulnerable in society. If that was the approach taken the Government's take of GDP would plummet, leaving the nation more prosperous and self sufficient.
Nu Labour are finished. By the time they get another pop at Government boundary chnages and voting reform will mean they will never be able again to use Scottish seats to lord it over the English.

Ricky

The two clown princes are both really cyborgs, created in a failed Kremlin experiment in the 1960s. Both are related to John Redwood-borg, have simulated skin and in a typical soviet era error - their hair was put on back to front. Have you noticed the same rictus grin, mechanical body language, awkwardness with humans? Both went to the same Oxford college and both read exactly the same degree. Have you ever seen any childhood pictures? I thought not....

TomTom

Balls is an idiot. Just look at NHS Dentistry and how it make UK nationals identifiable by their awful teeth when meeting Americans or Europeans....it is the imprisonment of the middle class in substandard public services because their income is confiscated at source that makes them suffer Poor Law standards of health care and Industrial Schools of State education.

Only politicians and bankers now make enough money to exempt themselves from the Basic State Provision as the middle class are exploited to fund the sans-culottes of voter fodder for the Imperial State and its ruling class

Frank P

Why don't these neo-Marxist moles just creep back onto their holes for a generation and give us all a break from their ludicrous day dreaming; having just applied their baleful policies for thirteen years and destroyed the nation, I have only one message for the sons of Adolphe "Ralph" Miliband, grandsons of Red Army Sam: dig a hole between your father's grave and the next one along (that of Karl Marx) and bury the books that shaped your twisted ideologies. The roots of communism are poisonous and lead to death and destruction. This country must grub out every vestige that remains and get the 'Welfarism' that it engenders and the State apparatus that oppresses freedom and enterprise off our backs. The ugliness of your genetically acquired ideology is betrayed by your manic eyes and the robotic cut of your jibs. Away with you! Ugghh!

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/HISmiliband.htm

MCMC

@science guy - indeed. And why give low earners tax credits when it would be more efficent to take them out of taxation altogether?

Liberty

Extending welfare up to the middle classes and beyond is a cover for aiming at a socialist nirvana, the government takes from each according to their means and gives according to their needs with Balls, Harman, et al doing the taking and giving. That has been the driving ideology of all Labour governments and why they always go bust.

Dirty Euro

The subtle anti semitism by trolls here is a disgrace.

Simon Stephenson

Science Guy : 11.50am

"Why should middle income earners get tax credits when it would be far more efficient for them to pay less tax in the first place?"

Because efficiency's not the object of the exercise.

What Balls and his fellow socialists will never cease working towards is the "normalisation" of the thought that a society based on individual free-will is inherently unstable and sub-standard, but that one based on "Big Brother knows best" is the blueprint for Paradise on Earth. A big part of this is the installation of the concept that tax isn't a levy, it's what the state decides not to give you out of the value you produce for society. You have no entitlement to what it does decide to give you, your post-tax income as you would call it. That you are given some scope for individual choice is the state's recognition that humanity is more easily controlled if it is allowed to engage in some of its minor peccadilloes.

The fact that very few people agree with their prescription matters to them only in so far as it creates the nuisance of having to proceed by stealth, and not to reveal or even hint at the reality of their intentions and objectives. But this is little more than a nit-pick to clever men such as these, since unscrupulous dishonesty on their part, and the desperate need on the part of the general population to believe in the goodness of humanity, combines to create a fairly easily defined route for them to take.

It's up to the rest of us to use this latest period of non-socialist government to beef up our national education so that there are fewer credulous and gullible people the next time there is a choice of who is to lead us.

Publius

There's something almost dynastic about these Labourites -- Mr and Mr Miliband; Mr and Mrs Balls, Baron Mandelson, grandson of Herbert Morrison. Can't Labour fish from a larger pool?

libertarian

So Blinky wants "progressive universalism" meaning that even middle class people receive benefits. So basically you want to remove a few more million people from the need to work and put them on welfare....hmm I wonder where union membership ( and subscriptions) will be coming from in a few years time if this ever got implemented

Simon Stephenson

I forgot to add that within today's Labour Party it's impossible to find anyone with:-

(a) the grassroots support needed to be elected as leader

and

(b) the astuteness needed to remain as leader

who isn't a socialist fifth columnist.

So it's pointless to spend time thinking about how a new leader might lead Labour back to genuine respectability. The Labour Party, as it is currently constituted, will never allow anyone to become leader who might have this as a goal.

Pete Hoskin

Kevyn Bodman: I have nothing against dividing lines per se, and am happy to argue against them. But the political class has shown itself too willing to fall in step behind the "investments vs cuts" line over the past decade. Hence ringfenced health spending, etc.

Ken

Does anyone anywhere really care the weeniest jot for Balls or Mili Bananas Ma et Mi?

None of these tiresome Marxists will be anywhere to be found next time their party gets near power ... cerca 2080.

Indeed as Moraymint notes above its doubtful we are going to survive the Brown Bustshell now being uncovered line by line in Treasury accounting ledgers.

I do hope the coalition contemplates retroactive legislation severely to punish the Labour politicians whose deliberate actions have ruined the economy for generations.

logdon

Two Ed's and one Balls? Surely a reversal of the natural state of things?

After one second's thought, that's Labour for you.

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

I see a serious problem. If, as Ed Balls says, he wishes first to listen to voters before deciding to put himself forward, how will be know what people want. If a man/woman cries, "Balls", it can be very ambiguous!

Nicholas

Publius - yes, the ever-decreasing circle of the promoters, persuaders and imposers of socialism, very much better at imposing than promoting or persuading btw because so many of those imposed upon do not have sufficiently critical faculties where promotion or persuasion would be required.

Simon Stephenson, may I say that the more I read your posts the more I admire and value them. Your 1318 hrs is a precise dissection. What a pity there is no-one writing or presenting in the "public narrative" of the MSM who could dissect and illuminate like this. What a pity that the faces presented by the Balls of Britain's socialist experiment are taken at their face value and that the hidden or disguised agenda is not being exposed as it should be. Socialist propaganda is marvellously effective.

paul holdstock

Bearing in mind Ed Balls' preferred tactics, perhaps the supporters of Ed and David, will not be referred to as milibandwaggoners, but milipedophiles?

Simon Stephenson

Nicholas : 3.01pm

Very kind words. Thank you.

Verity

John Goode's suggestion that Finance And Law be made into a compulsory GCE subject is so mind-bogglingly obvious and practical that it is astounding that it's never been mooted before.

mitch

In ed balls lala land where does the money come from to give the middle classes benefits? which planet does this moron live on ?
Will he tax them heavily and then return some and expect their votes? is he that deluded?

Publius

@Simon Stephenson
I second Nicholas' praise. Your post was a delight to read.

Chuck Unsworth

Dirty Euro

"The subtle anti semitism by trolls here is a disgrace."

Indeed. We should do so much better than this. Why be subtle? Subtlety is completely wasteful. Let's get full-on here. Harvard Professor Thomas Lehrer's treatise on National Brotherhood Week has provided remarkable clarity.

alexsandr

Surely Balls is member for a most marginal seat? How can he become leader when he could be ousted at the next election? Losing their leader after the next election would be interesting for Labour, I think. Tee Hee!

Simon Stephenson

Anne Wotana Kaye 1 : 2.59pm

I think you should be aware that Mr Balls "listening to voters" has a dual meaning.

The one he is hoping people will conclude is that he will form a genuine partnership with the voters, and that his political objectives will become the compromises that are inevitable if there is a balanced trade-off of opinion within the partnership.

I think, however, you will find that, to Mr Balls, "listening to the voters" actually carries no obligation to modify his intentions so as to reach a compromise agreement with them. Quite the contrary, in fact. The only voters' words that Mr Balls won't cursorily discard will be those which he can use in support of his already-decided agenda.

It would be honest and socially constructive, of course, if he were to make clear exactly what he means by "listening to voters", but then, throughout history, it has never been sensible to put the words "honest" and "left-wing socialist" in the same sentence.

Once a snake, always a snake.

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

Simon Stephenson: I really enjoyed reading your erudite posting. Thanks, Simon.
Really an honest soialist is a perfect example of an oxymoron.

Captain Christy

Simon Stephenson has an ability and insight to tell it as it is. He should be doing this full-time, either as a writer or as a member of the Government.

Alan Douglas

Ed Balls and "listening" to voters" are NOT realistic bedfellows. Watching his elfin wife on QT, I usually have to switch off, ditto with Balls. They are so busy "listening" with mouths full of bombast I'm surprised they managed 3 offspring !

Alan Douglas

David Lindsay

Ghastly term, of course. But Ed Balls is right, if hardly either profound or original.

Herbert Morrison professed never to have seen any conflict "between Labour and what are known as the middle classes". Aneurin Bevan denounced class war, calling instead for "a platform broad enough for all to stand upon" and for the making of "war upon a system, not upon a class". Both served under Clement Attlee (Haileybury, Oxford, the Bar and the Officer Corps), who was succeeded by Hugh Gaitskell (Winchester and Oxford). Harold Wilson was a Fellow of an Oxford college, and the son of a chemist and a schoolteacher. Jim Callaghan was a tax inspector. Michael Foot's public school may have been the Quakers' Leighton Park, but it was still a public school, which duly sent him to Oxford; he and his brothers indicated just how far the sons of a provincial solicitor could climb if they were sent to the "right" schools. Neil Kinnock's father may have been a miner, but he himself was a lecturer. John Smith was a QC. We all know about Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

And why not? The median household income in this country is £23,000. That is the middle. Ninety-three per cent of children attend state schools, and every business is dependent on them, as it is to some extent on the public transport used by everyone from time to time, and on the National Health Service, whose ambulance would take to its hospital anyone who had collapsed in the street with a heart attack, insurance or no insurance. Indeed, hardly anyone has private health insurance, and a large proportion of those who do, have it through their trade unions. And so on.

In the present state of affairs, extremely few are those who could do without their Child Benefit, or their tax credits, or their state pensions, or their winter fuel payments, or their free bus travel, or their free prescriptions, or their free eye and dental treatment, or their free television licenses. On the bus travel, on the prescriptions, and on the eye and dental treatment, the question is of why anyone should have to pay for them upfront, as it is of why anyone should have to pay upfront for hospital parking, or for undergraduate tuition, or for long term care in old age, when this does not apply in certain parts of the United Kingdom. Which brings us back to Morrison's principle that all parts of the Kingdom should benefit equally from social democracy. And to the fiercely Unionist Bevan, with his platform broad enough for all to stand upon.

Paid for by what? Well, not by any private sector, as that term is ordinarily used. Thus defined, there is no private sector. Not in any advanced country, and not since the War at the latest. Take out bailouts or the permanent promise of them, take out central and local government contracts, take out planning deals and other sweeteners, and take out the guarantee of customer bases by means of public sector pay and the benefits system, and what is there left? They are all as dependent on public money as any teacher, nurse or road sweeper. Everyone is. And with public money come public responsibilities, including public accountability for how those responsibilities are or are not being met.

Simon Stephenson

Publius , Anne Wotana Kaye 1, Captain Christy

Thank you, too, for your gracious comments.

I try.