by John Woodcock

You don’t need to be mystic Meg to predict that the next general election will be fought on the twin pillars of economic credibility and who has the right priorities for Britain.

The great importance of Ed Miliband’s and Ed Balls’ excellent speeches over the past few days is to make crystal clear how serious Labour is about demonstrating the former, and to open up the space for us to take on the Tories over the latter.

The public are understandably deeply anxious about the economic turmoil that is afflicting economies across the world. They are concerned by a deficit made even harder to shift by the Tory failure on jobs and growth, and rightly believe major and sustained belt tightening will be necessary to get back on track. And they will simply not listen to what we have to say if we allow the political debate to be dominated solely by an argument between more versus less, with Labour on the side of spending more. (more…)