Two Eds better than One?
By TSF at January 18, 2012 | 12:20 pm | Print
One of Ed Miliband’s aims as Labour leader was to unite the Labour Party, unfortunately it wasn’t the sort of united party he hoped for. Those on both wings of the party have now openly criticised the Labour leadership or rather the lack of it.
Ed has to get the balance right, he has to show he isn’t in the pockets of the unions yet at the same time he has to keep both wings of the party and the unions on side. Len McCluskey from Unite has warned that Ed’s leadership will lead to a ‘Blairite coup’ – surely not the same Blairites who won elections?
Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls has gone from one extreme to the other, firstly opposing every cut being made by the Coalition Government, then announcing he supports all government cuts. What a balls up one might say. What the two Eds should have done is outline their own cuts but also explain how their cuts would limit damage to businesses and families across the country.
The electorate are looking to Labour as the only progressive opposition party to scrutinise the government and stand up for them and their families. Instead, the government have hardly any opposition on certain parts of economic policy. Labour may as well join the coalition.
One can not help but wonder whether Labour’s problem is not just Ed Miliband but Ed Balls too. Miliband needs to be more his own man as he was during the leadership election in 2010. He needs to go back to his first conference speech – because that is the sort of person who should be leading the Labour Party – a centre-left leader with a vision.
Ryan Carter, 4 months ago
Ed B hasn’t changed his stance and gone from opposing to supporting them.
He said he can’t promise 3 years from an election to reverse them. The Coalition is making the situation worse by cutting ‘too far and too fast’ to promise to reverse these cuts now for 3 years time just isn’t a promise we can make. He always accepted that cuts were ‘needed’ but still opposes the scale and where they are, he always said we would have cut, but growth was more important and would make it easier to bring the deficit down to half over the course of the parliament.
They back a pay freeze to keep jobs and the money for growth would come from money made avaible via redistribution from cuts. Why don’t people pay attention past the mis-information spread via the right-wing press.