Miliband's New Year message: The same, but different
Peter Hoskin 10:36am
Well, folks, the 2012 model of Ed Miliband looks and sounds rather like the
unfancied 2011 model. Just compare the New Year message that he released today with the
one that he issued a year ago; the similarities are plenty. His main argument this year is that the Tories are the party of
gloom — resigned to years of stagnancy, unemployment, pestilence, etc — whereas Labour are the party of a bright new future, there to show that ‘optimism can defeat
despair’. Or, as he put it at the end of last year, ‘Even in these tough times, we must keep the flame of optimism burning.’
There are some differences, though. Compared with last year, Miliband talks much less about the coalition going ‘too far, too fast’ with deficit reduction. And, in fact, he even warns against the deficit getting worse, as in his misleading* suggestion that:
‘...neither in Britain, nor across the world, can anyone afford just to stand back and watch unemployment rise, growth stagnate and indeed borrowing go higher as a result.’
This new emphasis on fiscal responsibility chimes with Ed Balls' recent interview with the Independent, in which the shadow chancellor stressed that ‘there have got to be cuts’. With them consistently polling behind the Tories on the economy, Labour have clearly decided to slide closer to Cameron and Osborne on such matters.
And here we come to Miliband's perennial problem: balancing the two halves of his argument. Optimism and deficit reduction needn't be mutually exclusive. But when the Labour leader has few policies to meet the first half of that equation, and is yielding to the Tories on the second, then he's going to find it difficult to properly convince anyone. And while it's true that we may hear more specifics in the New Year, what has been hinted at so far (‘we will be taking a tougher approach to conditionality [for benefit claimants]’, says Balls) doesn't suggest that Miliband has this optimism lark down pat.
Which is to say: plenty of Labour MPs will be pessimistic about their party's chances in 2012. Some flame.
*Why misleading? Because some people might hear that and think that borrowing is rising — but it's not. However it's measured, borrowing is expected to fall, year on year, for every year of this parliament (see the third graph here). What have risen are the Office for Budget Responsibility's forecasts for borrowing in each individual year, but that doesn't mean that borrowing is rising overall. Ed Balls has conflated these two points before, although he admitted the error afterwards. It may, however, suit Labour to keep making this ‘slip-up’ throughout the New Year, so keep an eye out.
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Russell
December 29th, 2011 11:03am Report this commentOnce Mr Cameron gets the balls to scrap the fraudulent 'Trade Union Modernisation Fund' and all the 'Pilgrims' which he hasn't done in over 18 months, and puts forward to the EU conditions for our continued membership of the EU (trade only agreement) with the action of a referendum, Miliband and labour will be well and truly stuffed.
Has Cameron got what it takes to start changing the corruption of 13 years of labour?
Lonesome Dave
December 29th, 2011 11:03am Report this commentCarry on Ed, lots more of the same please!
Nickle
December 29th, 2011 11:06am Report this commentWhat a load of cr**.
"Borrowing is expected to fall"
Borrowing is going to rise. When you have a deficit it means the government is borrowing more and debt is going up.
Ah yes - lets confuse debt and deficit, borrowing with the rate of change of borrowing, the punters will never know.
Lies, lies and more lies.
TrevorsDen
December 29th, 2011 11:19am Report this commentBorrowing is indeed going to fall. Every year we borrow the debt goes up. Every that year the deficit is smaller - the rise in debt is smaller.
There post was quite clear. You are the paranoid one.
Pete Hoskin
December 29th, 2011 11:29am Report this commentNickle: I'm not confusing debt and deficit at all - something we have been careful never to do on Coffee House. Look at that graph I link to, based on OBR figures: as I say, year on year, the amount the government is expecting to borrow is falling.
Of course, as you suggest, that borrowing (or 'deficit', simply put) is on top of existing debt — so overall debt is still rising. I've made the same point countless times before, if you'd care to look back through my posts.
Tarka the Rotter
December 29th, 2011 11:40am Report this commentThought only heads of state gave out New Year messages: is Ed the Red Queen now?
John Moss
December 29th, 2011 11:55am Report this commentRe-skinning the Rover 200/400 series didn't do much good. Neither will this.
Sally Chatterjee
December 29th, 2011 12:12pm Report this commentThe trouble is that no matter what he says I find myself ignoring him mid-sentence. His odd voice is strangely repellent and soporific at the same time.
I suspect most people have given up on him and this could be his last New Year's message.
Ryan
December 29th, 2011 12:15pm Report this commentLet's not be too critical of Ed. He's doing us all a favour. A weak Labour party is good for our nation. Labour could only go one better and dump hapless Milliband and install Ed Balls as Leader. With the bruiser installed Labour would be even worse off.
AlanL
December 29th, 2011 12:20pm Report this comment"This new emphasis on fiscal responsibility chimes with Ed Balls' recent interview with the Independent"
Ed Balls on fiscal responsibility is like Charlie Sheen on drugs awareness.
mongoose
December 29th, 2011 12:24pm Report this commentre Nicky and PH: the problem word is borrowing. PH refers to the annual amount to be borrowed (the "borrowing requirement") which is pretty much the deficit. Nicky refers to the total amount that has been borrowed, pretty much the debt. Best to stick with the d-words.
Ginger
December 29th, 2011 12:58pm Report this commentRegrettably the combined efforts of Gordon Brown, Tony Blair, Polly Toynbee and the champagne socialists in creating more and more benefits and tax credits have only aucceeded in replacing the working class by the shirking class.
startledcod
December 29th, 2011 1:06pm Report this commentMongoose (12.24) has more or less got it right, we should go back to calling the deficit the Public Sector Borrowing Requirement or make it even more specific, the Annual Public Sector Borrowing Requirement which makes it absolutely clear what it is and would make it much harder for sneaky Politics to, accidentally on purpose, mix-up the debt and the deficit. How many times have we heard the Eds talk about 'paying down the deficit' notwithstanding that in this country we pay BACK debts.
Hexhamgeezer
December 29th, 2011 2:49pm Report this commentHaving read his little homily, this little palimpsest, you can just feel the words he desperately wanted to shout out - about the 'audacity of hope' and 'Yes we Can'
What a wanker.
David Bouvier
December 29th, 2011 3:30pm Report this comment"Borrowing" is a verb - an act of borrowing - so relates to the deficit. Mr Nickle is I suspect getting it confused wiht "Borrowings" a noun which - unqualified - would normally refer to total outstanding debt.
That said, and for this reason, deficit and debt are far clearer for good faith communication, so a self-denying ordinance for the Speccie writers would be a good thing.
Lord Wallington
December 29th, 2011 5:01pm Report this commentC**k !
fergus pickering
December 30th, 2011 12:12am Report this commentOh dear Ginger. The shirking class. Come along now. Not ALL rich people are bone idle, but quite a lot of them are. Of course they are. They don't need to work so they don't. But they pontificate, by God they do pontificate.
David H
December 30th, 2011 2:09am Report this commentWhatever you call it, the fact remains that Government is still spending more every day than it earns and is borrowing to keep this up. To ordinary people, this would be unsustainable and financial madness. To Government, it appears to be the norm. Until someone explains why normal financial sanity should not apply to Government, I wouldn't vote for any of them... My grandmother used to have several purses she used to divide the family income into food, rent, saving for annual holiday etc. Not rocket science but seemingly beyond our well-educated leaders.
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