Quite some claim from Ed Balls, writing in the Sunday Mirror today. “Let’s be clear what George Osborne’s game
is,” he blusters, “he’s trying to pick a fight about pensions, provoke strikes and persuade the public to blame the stalling economy on the unions.” And it is a charge that Andy
Burnham repeated on Dermot Murnaghan’s Sky show earlier. I was on live-tweeting duty, and lost count of how many times the
shadow education secretary used phrases such as “provocation,” “confrontation,” “playing politics,” and “back to the 1980s.” This, clearly, is an attack that
Labour are determined to push as relentlessly as possible. George Osborne is politicking, they are saying, at the nation’s expense.
It is, at the very least, an intriguing gambit on Labour’s part. What it’s attempting is nothing less than a grand realignment in British public opinion: shifting blame for the strikes from the unions to the government. If it succeeds, then the fallout could be immense. But it also carries huge risks for Miliband & Co. Although Balls urges the brothers to “avoid George Osborne’s trap,” he is still placing his party on the side of those people, such as Dave Prentis earlier, who are warning of “the biggest [industrial] action since 1926”. And then there’s the possiblity that Balls’ remarks might come across as the ravings of a conspiracy theorist. Perhaps he’ll be vindicated by the release of the Osborne Files in ten year’s time — but, for now, the shadow chancellor could do with more policies and less paranoia.
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