by Jonathan Todd
Ed Conway characterises this as “fast becoming the election that economics forgot”. If non-economic factors are determining votes, we might note the uptick in Ed Miliband’s ratings, showing improvement against the variable that I’ve argued Labour should focus on: leadership.
It is a big Tory theme to ask, “do you want this oddity as prime minister?” If the people say, as they seem to, “actually, he’s not that bad”, then this a Tory problem. Nonetheless, Miliband’s ratings have been poor enough for long enough that they risk the electorate buying the stories that the incumbents peddle. Even when reality is inconsistent with rhetoric.
This rhetoric has claimed that Labour caused the global financial crisis (when Mervyn King, the ex Governor of the Bank of England, says otherwise), that Labour spent too much at crucial junctures (when the Tories then backed this spending), and that Labour failed to properly regulate the banks (when the Tories wanted less regulation).
As galling as it may be, though, too much time may have passed for public opinion to substantially shift on these debates. But there remain questions about where the economy is now and where it is going.
The rhetoric was of “the march of the makers” and renewal of competitiveness. The reality is that the balance of payments and productivity are both unprecedentedly awful, evidencing a troubling lack of competitiveness, which may explain two-thirds of economists recently surveyed reporting concerns about the government’s economic management.
The political vogue of economic metrics waxes and wanes. We were more agitated by the balance of payments in the 1960s. Unemployment became a bigger issue in the 1970s. Thatcherism made the money supply “the thing” in the 1980s.
