It’s 3 years since Uncut started so, in a series of pieces, we’re taking stock of what has changed for Labour since 2010. Jonathan Todd looks at Labour’s progress, or lack thereof, on the economy.
As anticipated in my first Uncut piece, the deficit has defined the politics of this parliament. The political premium on being able to say where the money will come from has remained high, while the interest on government debt has stayed low.
George Osborne claims these low interest rates as City endorsement for his policies when really they implore him to borrow to invest. The market, it seems, is always right but only when it’s politically convenient.
While ministers struggle to offer the Treasury the cuts that the spending review demands, the political potency of the cuts narrative hardly seems diminished. This is in spite of the government failing to meet their stated objective: deficit reduction. As they reap a whirlwind of youth unemployment and stagnant growth.
Yet the economic debate stubbornly refuses to turn to Labour. The public seem trapped in a doom loop that is economically self-fulfilling and debilitates Labour, which must convince that a better economy could be achieved under prime minister Miliband.
As well as winning on bread-and-butter issues, Miliband has to address the deep structural problems that the nasty hangover from the NICE – non-inflationary continuous expansion – decade has revealed. Economic rebalancing requires rebalancing our top heavy state. The best chance for this in this parliament came and largely went with the mayoral referendums.
Having worked on Siôn Simon’s campaign, it was a big disappointment that Birmingham rejected this way forward. I’m working with Demos to try to think through new ways ahead for our cities.
These are times laden with immense challenges and without the resources that the delusions of the NICE decade conjured. Solutions urgently demand bold imagination. “One more heave” isn’t enough, as my first Uncut piece concluded.
Jonathan Todd is Labour Uncut’s economic columnist
Tags: 2010 general election, deficit, economy, Ed Miliband, Jonathan Todd
That’s because you still can’t tell the truth.
1. Under your control the pensions debts increased by 734 bn a year. All hidden. Not telling people is an example of lying by ommission
2. The NHS. Slaughtering how many a year?
I agree with you Nick, nearly all of the NHS problems can be laid at Brown: embraced PFI/PPI as a way of keeping the costs of the Treasury books. Hewitt Milburn Reid Burnham et al along with fellow travelers like Nicholson presided over increasing privatisation of the NHS, the deaths of thousands at Stafford and East Kent and many other places. You are RESPONSIBLE for this no one else, I exclude frank Dobson as the only honourable man. How many of the previous have gravitated to the private sector, Hewitt to Boots Milburn to Allied Medical.
You people are responsible, until you accept that you will NEVER EVER be trusted again.