Ed Miliband has taken inspiration for his 2015 attack line from an unlikely source: Ronald Reagan. In 1980, a week before the election between himself and incumbent President Jimmy Carter, Reagan told voters to ask themselves: ‘Are you better off than you were four years ago?’
At PMQs today, Ed Miliband told the Prime Minister ‘In 2015, people will be asking “Am I better off now than I was five years ago?”’ His hope, clearly, is that voters will decide the answer is ‘no’ — and that they’ll vote against the government as a result.
Miliband’s hopes are pinned on Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts, according to which average earnings will be lower, in real terms, at the next election than they were at the last, as this graph shows:
But even if that prediction does come to pass, Ed would be mistaken to think that he’ll be in Reagan’s position to Cameron’s Carter.
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