Ed Balls never gets enough credit for the Brownies that he cooks up. One was served today, when he spent an interview with the Beeb denouncing those Tory plans to axe 220,000 apprenticeships. As he put it:
“There is a choice for our country – a choice between a Government which says we must act to get through difficult times and the Conservatives, who on Monday announced cuts in public spending which would mean over 200,000 apprenticeships cut. In fact, it would mean almost no apprenticeships for young people at all.”
Except there are no Tory plans to axe apprenticeships. Not one. It was concocted by Mr Balls, on the grounds that if you lie in politics via figures, you get away with it. What Labour have done is do their own fake Tory budget-tightening exercise. It’s worth studying, as it gives an insight into Brownite tactics. If elected in time to adjust the 2009-10 financial year (v unlikely), Cameron would increase spending by 2.6%, not 3.4% – while protecting defence, health, international development (don’t ask) and schools. Budgets on remaining departments would likely grow by 1% rather than 4%. Cameron doesn’t spell it out further, so Balls has done it for him. His scenario, which he is falsely presenting as fact, is that Cameron axes £610m from the apprenticeships budget. The idea of the Tories doing so is risible. But dividing lines – real or concocted – are what the PM wants.
The danger for Balls is that he’s damaging the potency of his Tory “cuts” card. He’d be advised to stick to areas that are genuine, for now at least. One presumes he has enough real Tory policies to disagree with. Today’s line about apprenticeships is not exaggeration but outright fiction, and no self-respecting interviewer would let him get away with it. It’s the sort of fevered nonsense that normally only emerges in an election campaign. Which does make you wonder if Brown’s new setup – working from something akin to a war room in 12 Downing Street – is making them all a little too excitable.
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