Where is Balls?

When he was made SCOTE, there was a general breathless consensus here that he would wipe the floor with Osborne, something which he has manifestly failed to do.

In fact, the Cooper-Balls axis has been notably invisible. Not surprisingly, why would Balls want to go in to bat for an argument he believes Labour have already lost?

When Balls is choosing to hold his tongue, I suspect that means bad news for somebody. And that “somebody” is not George Osborne.

I do hope EdM’s got somebody watching his back.

Hah! That’s a funny try MC, but Ed Balls was in the New of the World yesterday and all over the media, including the morning Murnaghan show on Sky.

Ed Balls is everywhere, you can’t be listening to the radio or reading the papers or watching the box much if you don’t see that.
By the way Sunny, you’re missing an apostrophe in “whether its significantly”.

You can’t have it both ways Sunny;

On one hand you are busy trying to say that all cuts are bsically unnecessary, and the Coalition are cutting too fast….

…yet on the other hand you are now criticising them for their cuts being essentially the same as, if only marginally faster than Labour’s/Darlings plans.

I know you are really nothing but a Labour mouthpiece/attack dog/spiv but it does make you look a little on the hypocritical side.

Tyler, a bit of reading comprehension wouldn’t go amiss.

I’m pointing out that the difference between the plans ARE in fact large. Hence why I link to Ben Chu’s blogpost who shows this. I’m merely asking Tories why they’re contradicting themselves.

Comprende?

I’m merely asking Tories why they’re contradicting themselves.

I don’t think they are. You’re conflating a couple of different arguments. The first is that, in the international context, total spending cuts are in the mainstream. A 3.5-4% reduction, while tight, is not out of the ordinary. The US is cutting more, faster for example.

The next point is that the difference in topline figures between Labour and the Govt is not all that substantial – something like £20-40bn (in the context of total spending of c.£650bn).

(Ben Chu, incidentally, doesn’t mention this at all. He’s pointing out that various factors (protection of health spending and dramatic increases in debt financing) mean that total spending cuts of 4% will lead to departmental cuts of, on average 11%. If you take out health and ID you get an average cut of 19%. This latter average would only have been less under Labour because they were pledged to cut NHS spending.)

But although topline figures are similar, we were never told in any detail how Labour would implement the cuts. So Labour’s plans can be simultaneously not all that far away from the Tories and also completely useless and irresponsible without there being any significant contradiction.

@5 Sunny

Think Tim J @6 pretty much puts you right, but jsut to reiterate;

The Tory and Labour plans are very similar (20bn difference over 4 years is about 0.3% of GDP/annum).

The cutting plans are not even especially fast, compared with our economic peers.

Given the above, you are more than a little hypocritical for firstly attacking the Tory plans for cutting at all, as you (and others) have done repeatedly on this blog, but then turn around and then attacking Tory plans for not cutting fast enough! You can’t have it both ways.

Up to only a few days ago, we were being regularly told that there is “no alternative” to Osborne’s fiscal prescriptions set out in his budgets last June and March this year.

This Monday morning, in his BBC Today interview, Osborne was stressing how “flexible” his plan is:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9505000/9505478.stm

The rhetoric has certainly changed.

@5 Sunny

“I’m pointing out that the difference between the plans ARE in fact large. Hence why I link to Ben Chu’s blogpost who shows this”

I looked at the link and could not find any evidence in there that there are differences between the Tories and Labour. All the blog did was to highlight that some departments had significant cuts even if over all the cuts are only 3.7% over four years. No mention of Labour policy on cuts.

I am a tad confused, as I am always when it comes to economic arguments, thats why I tend to stay out of them. What I am curious to know is, do you think these cuts would be the same if the tories had achieved a majority? Dont care who answers this question it just would like to know?

What I am curious to know is, do you think these cuts would be the same if the tories had achieved a majority? Dont care who answers this question it just would like to know?

The same in size, possibly different in distribution.