With this weekend's Labour Party delegates limbering up for their outing to Manchester, Ed Balls, Shadow Chancellor and Shadow Leader of the Opposition (Yes, other Ed there is one ) has decisively laid out his stall.
Far from the Old Labour and unions' desire to pledge to abandon cuts and to return to a life of profligate borrowing and spending , Mr Balls has broken cover and declared that he intends to go into the 2015 election committed to a "ruthless" approach to public spending, to conduct a root and branch review of what is spent and how from the bottom up as opposed to the historic pruning across across all departments with all apart from a handful of protected ones sharing the pain regardless of their need and effectiveness. He promises that he will "examine every penny" spent and will "face harsh truth" .This is a politically brilliant manoeuvre It heads forms a powerful and attractive agenda and is exactly what the coalition (ie Tories) should have done on day 1 in May 2010. It now heads off any similar initiative by them of at the pass. Mr Balls has got there first and is waiting for them. Across the board cutting has been a feature of both government and private businesses. It is always a mistake as it means that the lean and efficient suffer more than the inefficient and numerically bloated. Bad behaviours are seen to be rewarded and even prudent in terms of corporate empires. Unimportant activites are treated in the same way as the important or vital . The customer is made to share the pain of the staff , quality is made to take its share of the cuts and so on so that at least all empoyees and the unions can feel that it is "fair". It is actually both stupid and unfair and longer term threatens to bring down the whole business or government department.
What Mr Balls has recognised,-as intelligent and clear thinking politicians of all parties, civil servants and business people should have done long ago ,-is that a review of the design and costs of activity is done from the bottom up with a clean sheet of paper there will be a very different conclusion of what is possible and at what price than if it is doine top down on a "fair to all" cost reduction/trimming basis. That is why Britain's new car industry, based on Japanese systems and automation ,has succeeded while the old one has died. The same is evident in the success and growth of low cost airlines against the largely stagnant or declining old fashioned legacy bretheren with all their historic baggage. It's common in a whole range of businesses crying out for reform and modernisation. A new start is much easier than reshaping an old organisation. The Labour Party itself has recent and ongoing experience of that reality.
Full marks then to the unlikely persona of Mr Balls for saying loud and clear that he would have to continue with the Tory cuts in a post 2015 Labour government and , much more important and revolutionary, will carry out this comprehensive review within a year.(Plse note this Dave, -you have just given your urgent review of just one subject -airport capacity,- THREE years to report back). With this move he is moving out of the minutiae of piecemeal political wrangling and posturing into big sky thinking.
It's a very clever move. Why? Why now,- just ahead of both the Labour and Conservative Party Conferences?
First the Labour Conference. There it is hoped to begin the party's financial rehabilitation with the voters. Less of these than are given credit for it are actually stupid. Most realise that there have to be cuts, though not of course directly affecting themselves, who and wherever they are. Labour's continuing state of denial or at least delay are not going to get these peoples' votes and Ed Balls is recognising this. He is also recognising this as being a very good moment to start opening a visible gap between himself and the man who has the party leadership role he clearly wants. Ed Miliband owes his successful electoral fratricide to the unions. They are making it clear that they expect their pound or two of flesh. The GMB leadership in a pre Conference statement has said that Labour is out of touch with its historic (old fashioned) working class roots -ie turn away from any remaining New Labour fancy new friends . They are urging Miliband , who will be in his almost constant mournful sharing everyone's pain mode and using the word "fairness" at ever turn next week. That will give Miliband a huge problem and unless he finds a source of new courage he will end up looking like a defecit denier while Ed Balls walks away with praise for tough love and facing the realities. Balls was always going to start turning the screw sometime before the election and it looks as if he has decided that the time is just about right to start now. If Miliband's ratings don't improve within the next year, there would just be time for a leadership contest and party recovery from that before the May 2015 General Election. Good thinking, strategy and tactics by Mr Balls.
Secondly why not kill two birds with one stone? By pinching what should be a Tory agenda just before the Tory Conference in ten days time, Mr Balls has walked off with what should be their ball. If they then promise to do something similar they will appear to be adopting a Labour initiative and Labour will capitalise on that by asking where the ideas of their own are. The Shadow Chancellor has caught the Conservative Party strategists (where are they?) have been caught very flat footed here and to be sure he is not one to resist all oportunities to rub their faces in it over the next two years.
Finally, while the other Ed yesterday again dived into the cornflakes, and surfaced with trademark miserabalist hangdog expression having found a new adversary in the (private) pension funds and come up promising to share our pain and fight them to the etc etc......,Mr Balls has avoided such graunchy, heard-it-all-before negative stuff and gone for the big issue, another marker of clear blue water between the two men.
Good stuffing all round by Mr Balls. Game on.
Far from the Old Labour and unions' desire to pledge to abandon cuts and to return to a life of profligate borrowing and spending , Mr Balls has broken cover and declared that he intends to go into the 2015 election committed to a "ruthless" approach to public spending, to conduct a root and branch review of what is spent and how from the bottom up as opposed to the historic pruning across across all departments with all apart from a handful of protected ones sharing the pain regardless of their need and effectiveness. He promises that he will "examine every penny" spent and will "face harsh truth" .This is a politically brilliant manoeuvre It heads forms a powerful and attractive agenda and is exactly what the coalition (ie Tories) should have done on day 1 in May 2010. It now heads off any similar initiative by them of at the pass. Mr Balls has got there first and is waiting for them. Across the board cutting has been a feature of both government and private businesses. It is always a mistake as it means that the lean and efficient suffer more than the inefficient and numerically bloated. Bad behaviours are seen to be rewarded and even prudent in terms of corporate empires. Unimportant activites are treated in the same way as the important or vital . The customer is made to share the pain of the staff , quality is made to take its share of the cuts and so on so that at least all empoyees and the unions can feel that it is "fair". It is actually both stupid and unfair and longer term threatens to bring down the whole business or government department.
What Mr Balls has recognised,-as intelligent and clear thinking politicians of all parties, civil servants and business people should have done long ago ,-is that a review of the design and costs of activity is done from the bottom up with a clean sheet of paper there will be a very different conclusion of what is possible and at what price than if it is doine top down on a "fair to all" cost reduction/trimming basis. That is why Britain's new car industry, based on Japanese systems and automation ,has succeeded while the old one has died. The same is evident in the success and growth of low cost airlines against the largely stagnant or declining old fashioned legacy bretheren with all their historic baggage. It's common in a whole range of businesses crying out for reform and modernisation. A new start is much easier than reshaping an old organisation. The Labour Party itself has recent and ongoing experience of that reality.
Full marks then to the unlikely persona of Mr Balls for saying loud and clear that he would have to continue with the Tory cuts in a post 2015 Labour government and , much more important and revolutionary, will carry out this comprehensive review within a year.(Plse note this Dave, -you have just given your urgent review of just one subject -airport capacity,- THREE years to report back). With this move he is moving out of the minutiae of piecemeal political wrangling and posturing into big sky thinking.
It's a very clever move. Why? Why now,- just ahead of both the Labour and Conservative Party Conferences?
First the Labour Conference. There it is hoped to begin the party's financial rehabilitation with the voters. Less of these than are given credit for it are actually stupid. Most realise that there have to be cuts, though not of course directly affecting themselves, who and wherever they are. Labour's continuing state of denial or at least delay are not going to get these peoples' votes and Ed Balls is recognising this. He is also recognising this as being a very good moment to start opening a visible gap between himself and the man who has the party leadership role he clearly wants. Ed Miliband owes his successful electoral fratricide to the unions. They are making it clear that they expect their pound or two of flesh. The GMB leadership in a pre Conference statement has said that Labour is out of touch with its historic (old fashioned) working class roots -ie turn away from any remaining New Labour fancy new friends . They are urging Miliband , who will be in his almost constant mournful sharing everyone's pain mode and using the word "fairness" at ever turn next week. That will give Miliband a huge problem and unless he finds a source of new courage he will end up looking like a defecit denier while Ed Balls walks away with praise for tough love and facing the realities. Balls was always going to start turning the screw sometime before the election and it looks as if he has decided that the time is just about right to start now. If Miliband's ratings don't improve within the next year, there would just be time for a leadership contest and party recovery from that before the May 2015 General Election. Good thinking, strategy and tactics by Mr Balls.
Secondly why not kill two birds with one stone? By pinching what should be a Tory agenda just before the Tory Conference in ten days time, Mr Balls has walked off with what should be their ball. If they then promise to do something similar they will appear to be adopting a Labour initiative and Labour will capitalise on that by asking where the ideas of their own are. The Shadow Chancellor has caught the Conservative Party strategists (where are they?) have been caught very flat footed here and to be sure he is not one to resist all oportunities to rub their faces in it over the next two years.
Finally, while the other Ed yesterday again dived into the cornflakes, and surfaced with trademark miserabalist hangdog expression having found a new adversary in the (private) pension funds and come up promising to share our pain and fight them to the etc etc......,Mr Balls has avoided such graunchy, heard-it-all-before negative stuff and gone for the big issue, another marker of clear blue water between the two men.
Good stuffing all round by Mr Balls. Game on.
