In the comments in my previous post, Alex suggests I am less than clear about what I think Labour should do.
It strikes me this is fair enough. After all, I'm suggesting clarity should be our watchword, so if I am unclear, mea culp and all that.
Sadly for me, I am not leader of the Labour party, so can only offer advice, and just like, everyone else, I only know that I don't know what the precise economic conditions of 2015 will be. So, if I were Leader of the Labour party, I'd try to do something tike the following.
1. Accept that where the Country is going to be in 2015 will be your starting point in government.
2. Accept that the 2015-17 spending envelope will be extremely tight, even if we don't know what the precise economic situation will be, so no promises can be made just yet.
3. Accept therefore, that we will not be in a position to reverse cuts others have made. We will have to choose priorities carefully with limited resources.
4. Based on this, first explain what your priorities for investment are, and why.
5. To begin with, demonstrate your investment priorities by re-allocating existing resources, not proposing incremental spending. Use the "pain" of re-allocation as evidence for overall fiscal credibility.
6. Set up specific structural rules that will bind you to the overall fiscal path you have set out. The precise nature of these rules matters less than the principle they can never be fiddled with.
7. If you do decide to make incremental spending pledges, as you feel they are essential for social justice and economic success, ensure by 2015 that they are costed and clearly paid for by specific revenue measures. Pledge not to go beyond these.
8. Never deviate from 1-7, no matter how tempting.
Of course, I am not the Leader of the Labour party. I am one of those bloggers no-one has ever heard of until they do something monumentally silly, like join the Tories. This makes devising strategies somewhat easier than they are to actually deliver.
Re -allocate from who ..or whom ..anyway , who is too flush in your opinion ? You keep saying vague things about the rich and loop holes , when you know perfectly well thats all a fairy tale. That means you are re-allocating from the middle who, it seems are insufficiently squeezed , or to be squeezed or not so much squeezed as sqeezable
At what household income level do you apply the hot poker and enthusiam ?
Can you give one example of a re-allocation ?
I don`t even have the slightest idea what your priorities actually are . Growth, fiscal conservatsim, welfare education and …. everything.
What about a promise to halve international AID that would free up £6 billion and add to demand . What about a further rescheduling of teachers pensions , they can srike all they like , they are going no where and they will still get no sympathy ?
9. Try not to tell everyone that nothing will be reverted, if you in fact mean "well, what we can offer will be limited by the conditions of 2015 so I can't make any promises", as this tends to cause trouble.
And before all of that develop a coherent strategy for generating growth in the economy – without which 1 to 8 really are pipe dreams.
I am not sure that there is much sense in setting up specific structural rules from which you can never deviate – just imagine what would have happened if we had such in 2007/8 – all governments need to have the flexibility to deal with unforseen events.