Ed Miliband’s press conference today was a classic example of clever opposition politics. He and Alan Johnson said that Labour would continue the bonus tax on the banks for one more year. This policy has the twin advantage of maximising the coalition’s discomfort over the whole issue of bankers’ bonuses and expiring well before the next election.
The rest of Miliband’s press conference was devoted to an attempt to defend the record of the previous Labour government. Miliband kept making the valid point that in the years before the crash Cameron and Osborne weren’t saying that Labour was spending too much but were instead committed to matching Labour’s spending plans. This is true but like the Tory protestations that Labour and the Lib Dems had also backed joining the ERM bound to fall on deaf ears.
The truth is Labour shouldn’t have been running a deficit after a decade of growth. Even Keynesians should believe that in good times budgets should be in surplus.
Several of the questions afterwards focused on Alan Johnson, who, judging by his recent errors, hasn’t made it very far through his economics primer. Johnson cannot afford any more slip ups if he is to remain credible. His problem is that once you’ve made a basic error, you are far more likely to be peppered with ‘test your knowledge’ questions by interviewers.
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