Osborne Takes Hold: But What About Vince?

Although the performance of the Tories in bye elections is awful and they look set for a drubbing in both the upcoming local and European elections, George Osborne is at last beginning to stand out as a Chancellor who knows what he is doing and is sure of his grip. Readers will know that this Blog has been very critical of stoking a consumer boom with a stimulus of house price inflation, which is what Osborne has undoubtedly done, but he has indicated that he is fully aware that this cannot go on for long.

More investment and exports are required, he rightly says. So is less reliance on borrowing to fund consumption. He has said that too. His man at the Bank of England, Mark Carney, has said the recovery is neither secure nor sustainable. This shows the Treasury and the Bank singing from the same sheet. That creates an aura of competence and when it comes to voting in the General Election in 2015, it is to the party with the credibility to run the economy that the most votes will go. That is why Labour’s lead is slipping, although it is still enough to give them a working majority if sustained to polling day. But polling day is more than a year away.

If Labour is not going to face disappointment in 2015, Ed Milliband will have to move out of his quirky mode of discount politics, offering a bargain freeze of energy prices here and a guarantee of jobs there into a more sophisticated grand plan for sustained recovery. For this he must turn to his shadow Chancellor, Ed Balls. Here lies the problem. Ed Balls is going nowhere in economic credibility. He neither looks nor sounds nor acts as if he knows what he is doing and the only offer on his stall is more borrowing. As a welfare minister yes, or transport maybe; perhaps even the poisoned chalice of the Home Office presently held nervously by his wife. But on the economy no; he leads to a dead end for Labour. He is a political cul-de-sac.

Ed Milliband has always been a much sharper operator than his geeky persona suggests, leading people to underestimate him time and again, including his brother. He knows that he has a talented clutch of young up and coming politicians with whom to replace the other Ed, but none has quite the experience or clout to ride into a general election campaign as Labour’s economic champion. He tried Alan Johnson at the start, a popular and level headed politician, who was a disastrous shadow chancellor who knew next to nothing about economics.

There is of course one name which stands way above all others. Unfortunately he is already married to somebody else. Yet he makes no secret of the fact that he would rather be married to Labour. We are of course talking about Vince Cable. If the Labour leader could ditch the other Ed and pull Vince to head his Treasury team, Labour would most likely win in 2015. Comfortably.

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