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The Most Critical Budget for Any Labour Chancellor
By Andy | April 20, 2009
The Sunday Broadsheets were all agreed yesterday, that Wednesday’s budget is probably the most difficult to be faced by any Labour Chancellor.
I wish Alistair Darling well. As the Observer put it yesterday, is there anyone who would wish to be Darling at the moment?
The interesting thing for me will be to see how Darling deals with unemployment and with the regional needs of the Midlands and the North.
Various friends in the South have been talking to me recently about recovery. They argue that the government’s investment packages will be beginning to work their way through into the economy some time towards the end of this year. But the improvements they see happening are all to do with banking and finance.
At the beginning of this crisis I wrote that — despite the problems faced by the City — that this recession would hit hardest those who traditionally suffer. And so it has proved.
So far we have lacked clarity on support for the long-term unemployed and real, concerted support to manufacturing industry. For the Midlands and further North the future looks bleak, with unemployment projected to continue to rise into next year. In many ways the North has never really recovered from the collapse of manufacturing in the early eighties.
Some argue that the City is now the most important driver of our economy and that we need to get it back on track quickly, even though the interventions required are different (and sometimes contradictory) to the needs of the North.
But if Labour is to have a chance of surviving the next General Election it has to set itself as the Party for all of the country, and not just part of it.
It is striking — here in the Midlands — how often people contrast the support given to the banks to the support given to manufacturers. This crops up in all kinds of everyday conversation, amongst all kinds of people. A lot of folks here may be wary of Cameron’s Conservatives but they are no longer sure that Labour is a Party that will best look after their needs.
Many of the Party’s current initiatives seemed aimed at the floating voters of the South East — nothing new in that I here you cry! But if the floaters desert us we’ll see the irony of a Party with its base in the industrial North having lost an election with policies aimed squarely and the South East.
A lot rests on Darling’s shoulders as it is he who will be responding to the needs of Labour’s heartlands. By all accounts he will have little to play with and will need to target what funds he has to maximum advantage.
Good luck Alistair!
Topics: Economics |
April 21st, 2009 at 10:21 am
I feel desperately sorry for Alistair Darling. It is quite plain he is being told what to do by the Clunking Fist. If it goes well, Brown will take the credit. If it goes badly wrong (as I suspect uit will) poor Alistair will be the fall guy. Brown would love to have Ed Balls as Chancellor, and an apparent “mistake” by AD would give Brown his chance to install Balls before the next election to give him a better chance in the punch-up that will ensue between the Brown faction and the Blairite tendency: what a revolting thought: front-runners for the next leader could be the bumptious Balls or the pouting Purnell, an alleghed “Labour” minister.
“It is striking — here in the Midlands — how often people contrast the support given to the banks to the support given to manufacturers.”
I think they have every right to feel that is true. £150 billions to the bankers and rising - they are even treating themselves to multi-million “bonuses” with our money.
This is what you get when you have Tory manque’ posing as Labour politicians.
The daft thing is why the Brownites and Blairites are permenantly at war is a mystery: by and large they believe in the same things: a plague on both their houses. Let’s get back to GENUINE Labour values.
April 21st, 2009 at 10:32 am
Darling gets a lot of brownie points by being available to the media and — seems to me — being pretty honest.
As for the war between the factions, it would appear that the battle for succession has already started.
April 21st, 2009 at 11:20 am
I certainly think Alistair is one of the more acceptable faces of New Labour. I sincerely hope in the battle for succession the Blairites lose - after all: what messge would it give that a man who is now discredited for lying to involve us in a war, who worships money as much, if not more than, Sir Fred Goodwin, has an acolyte leading the party.
I genuinely believe if they were mad enough to do this it would guarantee that Labour would be out of office for at least 2 elections - remember when the Tories tried hague as Thatchefr Mark 2? people didn’t want it, because they felt (rightly) her time had gone - the same with Blairism - it sold for a time but thats all over now. And the thought of Byers,Milburn et al crawling back to the cabinet - it turns the stomach - a remake of “The Night of the Living Dead”
April 23rd, 2009 at 4:48 pm
“in the midst of life we are in debt”.
Sorry, I just couldn’t resist that! - all my own work