The Tony Blair Question is a fair one: is Ed Mili's Labour a Left wing or centre ground party?

We are all now familiar with Tony Blair's recent statements that:

“I am still very much New Labour and Ed Miliband would not describe himself in that way, so there is obviously a difference there,” he added. “I am convinced the Labour Party succeeds best when it is in the centre ground.”

This came from his recent interview with the Economist: see here - http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/dec/30/tony-blair-ed-miliband-general-election-labour

Blair is clear in his own mind that Ed Miliband is left wing, and offering impractical solutions to the countries big questions - but upon this voters will have to decide. Put simply, what kind of Labour Party are they being offered?
As Dan Hodges, the columnist put it:
"For the past four years. Labour has been trying to win from the Left. The New Politics. The Thirty Five Per Cent strategy. Zen Politics. Whatever you wanted to call it, the grand plan – and the philosophy underpinning it – were clear. To win, Labour had to reject the consensus, “Big Tent” politics of Blairism."

Earlier this week, in a refreshingly honest open letter to Tony Blair, Neal Lawson – a member of Ed Miliband’s early kitchen cabinet – set out the thinking behind the strategy. “In hindsight, the wrong people were voting Labour. The tent was too big and you spent the next 10 years trying to keep the wrong people in it.”

The evidence against the 2 Eds is pretty clear: Labour has formally abandoned the political centre and swung to the Left. Deficit denial. Big state interventionism. Raw anti-capitalism. Public service protectionism; a nation divided between “producers and predators”.

For my part, I well remember the 1997 General Election and the Labour Party rightly won. Blair offered a centre left party which supported business, wanted to keep taxes down as they knew high taxes stop job creation, and which had a genuine offer to Mr and Mrs Middle Ground UK. Clearly the Labour Party lost its way during their 13 years in office but their message in 1997 was clear.

Under Ed Miliband and Ed Balls their hero is the far left socialist leader, Francois Hollande of France - he of the 75% taxes, anti business laws, and pro union policies. The results in France have been catastrophic. Minimal growth, mass unemployment, entrepreneurs and job creators leaving the country in droves.

So it is a fair question, posed by a Labour leader who won three elections largely from the entre: is Ed Miliband a centre ground politician or a left wing politician? That is for voters to decide, but the evidence is pretty clear. 

Surely cutting the deficit & balancing the books is more important than memorising a speech?

I must be one of the few people who has actually watched Ed Miliband's speech yesterday as he tried to convince the Labour party faithful that he could tackle Britain's economy. The speech had its moments to be fair, but he totally forgot to talk about the deficit and immigration - although these are consistently the 2 biggest issues pollsters say voters are concerned with. Freud might have something to say about the unconscious erasing of past mistakes and the inability to deal with present problems, but lets not try and psycho analyse the Labour leader too much. But what you "forget" is also very indicative.  

For the real problem is the lack of candour from anyone in Labour about the scale of the financial challenges facing a Labour government, if it came to power next year, because the economy is not out of the woods and it is not sunlit uplands all the way from May 2015. Just ask French President Francois Hollande how his anti austerity super socialist measures are going in La Belle France: the reality is that socialism is a jobs and economic disaster. France is the sick man of Europe.

Ed Balls said on Monday that Labour was facing difficult, unpopular decisions, but then undermined his bad cop routine by failing to outline any meaningful cuts to any budgets. And this from an Opposition who has opposed every attempt at Budget Reduction between 2010-2014.

The truth is that Ed Miliband is simply not concerned by the economy, balancing the books and cutting the deficit. We have to remember that Ed Miliband is after all:
- a former Treasury Policy wonk under Tony Blair,
- an advisor to Gordon Brown [remember "no more boom and bust"]
- and now advised on the economy by Ed Balls

So his lack of understanding of the economy is not altogether surprising.

Miliband's Bon Ami Hollande shows why French socialism is no way to run a country

As the French economy struggles on and socialism fails I am not sure Ed Miliband will continue to argue that the French way is a better way. But if you want an understanding of how bad Britain would be under the 2 Ed's then France is your example.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/10735650/Francois-Hollande-picks-a-government-of-combat-after-disaster-at-the-polls.html

What happened to One Nation Labour? That's gone now has it?

Dan Hodges quietly explains where Labour are going: as he puts it very eloquently
"At the moment Ed and Labour are coming over as the party of social vengeance. Does Ed Miliband want to move Britain beyond the financial crisis of 2008, or does he want retribution for it? Is it about moving the country forward, or seeking payback?

If it’s the latter, it will rebound on him."

Also we should remember Andrew Neil's dicing and slicing of the Labour tax proposals. Clearly we all want more tax revenue for the country, and the jobs the big, and small, businesses create:
These stats are unarguable:

HMRC Revenues from Top Taxpayers:
2011/12: £41.3 Billion [50% rate]
2012/13: £41.6 Billion [50% rate]
2013/14: 49.36 Billion [45% rate]
The truth is that high taxes destroy jobs and the economy. Just ask the French
Full story here:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danhodges/100256801/labour-have-dropped-one-nation-and-gone-for-bitterness-and-spite/

Will Labour ever lose their [Ed] Balls?

15 years as Gordon Brown's right hand man is a poor preparation for a future Chancellor. Ed Balls is the biggest single liability for the Labour party, and yet they refuse to sack him. He is the most unpopular part of Labour on the doorstep when I discuss with constituents about the country going bust, the Labour years, and the debts we are trying to pay off. He is stuck with his 15+ years of service to Gordon Brown, and his continued denial that anything pre 2010 was his fault. But have a look at him in the Commons now and you see a man struggling.

My take on it is this:
- Balls can’t talk about his record in government, because he presided over the biggest recession ever.
- He can’t talk about the deficit because he has no plan to deal with it. He favours more spending and borrowing.
- He can’t talk about infrastructure, because he was the person who tried to break the consensus on the biggest project of all, namely HS2.
- He can’t talk about housing because there were 420,000 fewer affordable homes at the end of the Labour government. Less homes built than since 1930's.
- He can’t talk about business rates, because they went up 71 per cent under Labour.
- He can’t talk about support for business because he wants to put more taxes on business, even though they create the jobs.
- He can’t ask about standing up to the powerful because he is funded by the trade unions.
- He can’t ask about jobs because he wants more jobs taxes. He predicts that tightening our belts and paying off our debts would make more people unemployed. In reality job numbers have gone up massively locally and nationally.
- And he can’t ask about banking and financial services because he was the City Minister who presided over the bust, and continues to block regional banking
To avoid all of this he learns the piano! I admire that, but ....Eventually Labour will realise that they cannot go into or ever hope to win an election with a liability like this? But that is their choice. Bizarre.

France right now is what a Labour government would be like - unemployment rising, no deficit reduction plan

"Business confidence is falling. Unemployment has risen to 10.9%, a 16-year high. Only months after escaping one recession, the nation is on the brink of another. Time to adopt Labour's plan B? No, because this is France – plan B is already in place, and the bad economic news is its grisly fruit.

At one time, it seemed as if the British left would never stop talking about a grand economic alternative to austerity. There was even a march for the alternative - though none of its proponents were very specific about exactly how the alternative would work. The most you could get out of them was this: austerity would be stopped; the rich would be made to pay far higher taxes; the deficit could look after itself, or else it would be magically paid off by a plan-B boom."

Full details about why The Two Eds have no economic credibility is set out in more detail here in  the guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/18/labour-plan-b-france-economic-disaster-ed-balls-austerity

If you want more spending, more borrowing and no turnaround of the British economy then do vote Labour. The reality is that you will end up with a scenario that is just like France, which is failing to confront the problem that it continues to spend more than it earns. This leads to greater unemployment, no growth, a relapse into further recession and no action on the deficit.

Good meeting with the Chancellor this evening

Met with the Chancelor this evening and listened to his detailed report on the economy. We discussed everything from the fuel price freeze, which we urged him to continue [compare with the 10+ price hikes under Labour], taking low paid out of tax [compare with Gordon Brown and the 10p tax], creating over a million private sector jobs [on any measure more in employment as compared to the Labour years], keeping mortgage rates down, reducing the deficit and getting more apprentices coming through [mine have doubled in my area of the North East].
Yet we also discussed the possible clouds on the horizon which could be European or Middle Eastern instability, or destabilisation in the emerging markets. For now the Eurozone continues its recovery, and the Brisitsh economy is healing and growing.
One thing is clear. I listened to Ed Balls today and his policy of borrowing more and spending more would be disastrous. Not just my view but the view of every independent commentator.
Forgot to add that the line of the night was the wonderful Jessica Lee's comment. She is the MP for the Erewash constituency and stated that
"Some people may think that the G20 was the important political event of the week but for us in Derbyshire its the Erewash Jobs Fair on Thursday that counts."