Labour’s decision to opt for a long leadership contest means that the new leader of the opposition will not be in place when George Osborne presents his emergency Budget on the 22nd of June. This presents the coalition with a significant political opportunity.
Harriet Harman is a consistently underrated Commons performer, she came off far better than most people expected she would in her clashes with Hague at PMQs when Brown was absent. But one subject she was not comfortable on was economics. Combine this with the fact that a Labour party involved in a leadership contest is not going to talk with one voice and the coalition’s honeymoon and there is a strong case for using the emergency Budget to set out in pain-staking detail how the bulk of the structural deficit will be eliminated over the next five years.
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