Point-scoring

THE arrival of Yorkshire MPs Ed Miliband and, belatedly, Ed Balls at the top of the Opposition was billed as a fresh start. Yet with every passing day Labour appears to be heading back to the economic confusion and political aggression that characterised the Brown Government.

By The Newsroom

Published 17th Jun 2011, 07:00 BST

Mr Balls is right to raise the prospect of a temporary VAT cut to kick-start the economy, given that Britain’s recovery remains distinctly uncertain.

What he is wrong to do, however, is to attack John Lipsky, the acting head of the troubled International Monetary Fund, for his support for George Osborne’s deficit-cutting plan. This was a pointless and transparent attempt at political point-scoring which is likely to turn off the very swing voters to whom it is supposed to appeal.

Labour needs to restore its economic credibility and will not do so by denying past mistakes, such as its overspending and the creation of a lax system of financial regulation. Mr Miliband has woken up to this but, not for the first time, Mr Balls has been slow and stubborn to accept the truth. He should remember that Gordon Brown, his old boss and mentor, took a similar approach as he steered their party to electoral disaster.