Balls’ pitch for the shadow chancellorship

If there’s one observation to make about Ed Balls’s speech this morning it’s that it’s punchy stuff. His main point is that the coalition are “growth deniers” – not only do their “austerity and cuts” risk a slide back into recession, but they’re also unnecessary. He explains: Attlee didn’t make his “first priority … to reduce the debts built up during second world war,” and he left us with the welfare state – so why should we cut spending now? Et cetera, et cetera. These are, more or less, all arguments that we’ve heard from Balls before. But this is definitely the most concentrated form they have ever taken. It’s an unrelenting barrage of Brownite economics.

As always with Balls, there are exaggerations, inconsistencies and half-truths aplenty. Part of the problem is just that his reputation precedes him: so it’s funny to hear this disciple of “no more boom and bust” say that, “the first lesson I draw from history is to be wary of any British economic policymaker … who tells you that there is no alternative.”