One of the curious traditions of Labour conference is that directly after the Shadow Chancellor’s speech, hard copies of his wise words are sold outside the conference hall. Any fiscally responsible Labour types trying to make difficult decisions about how to spend their money might be best advised to keep their £1 in their pockets for the time being, though. Today was not Ed Balls’ finest hour.
It can’t just be that many people at Labour are exhausted after the Scottish campaign to react to their Shadow Chancellor’s speech. The reaction of the conference hall was far too flat for the last conference economy speech before the general election. And the reason for that was that there were no new announcements. Aside from two quite small policies, briefed overnight, on capping child benefit increases and cutting ministerial pay, Balls simply reminded the party faithful of previous promises that they like the most. He said:
‘We also need to put right the mistakes this Government has made.
So we won’t pay for new free schools in areas where there are excess school places. We will repeal the NHS Bill and stop the creeping privatisation of the National Health Service. And yes, Conference, in our first Budget, the next Labour government will scrap the Bedroom Tax too.’
These re-announcements were intended to cheer up a room that was being told it had to make difficult decisions in order to get the deficit down. Balls told the hall:
‘Conference, I am a realist and an optimist. I don’t believe in ducking difficult choices, unpopular decisions, hard truths. But I do believe in the power of politics and public service to make a difference. That’s who I am. That’s who we are. That’s what our Labour Party is for.’
But the funny thing was that the difficult and unpopular decisions didn’t really come. Sure, there was a ‘boo’ here, a ‘shame’ there, and a jolly good groan when Balls mentioned the child benefit policy and raising the pension age. But the child benefit policy will save £400m. It is a mere scratch on the bulk of cuts Labour would have to do. And it wouldn’t even be particularly unpopular because it does not involve visibly taking money away from families, just not raising the amount they get by as much.
He got a dutiful standing ovation at the end, but Balls, who can be a fabulous showman when he wants, must have deliberately been keeping things flat today. And Chuka Umunna didn’t announce anything in his speech, which came a little earlier. Yesterday was similarly newsless. The Shadow Cabinet, never the strongest part of Labour’s machine, is looking even weaker this week.
What is the party conference holding its breath for? The strategy has either been to accept that Scotland will overshadow any Shadow Cabinet announcements, or to keep everything clear for Ed Miliband’s speech, where he will produce an almighty show-stopper of an announcement. The latter is entirely possible and maybe even sensible in the long-term: Miliband’s big speeches have consistently been underestimated by the media and his opponents. But he’ll need a pretty big announcement to energise this flat conference.
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