After George Osborne delivers today’s budget, Ed Miliband will respond for Labour. It’s one of the more obscure aspects of our parliamentary system that the leader of the opposition replies to the budget rather than the shadow chancellor. Then again, Miliband is a trained economist with a decade of experience in the Treasury and a lectureship at Harvard under his belt, so this is something he should be able to take in his stride.
However when responding to a budget, it’s rarely the detail that matter (unless Osborne really can pull a “rabbit” from his battered looking hat – and a shiny new pound coin doesn’t count), it’s the narrative that counts. Last year we were told that Labour was sunk because the economy was growing, yet the unbalanced recovery has seen Labour maintain a solid if unspectacular poll lead thanks to a shift in tone towards “cost of living”. This year Miliband is attempting a similar rhetorical shimmy, brooding out the debate around the economy to one of inequality in society – and asking whether this is a recovery for ordinary people, or the 1%?
It’s unlikely that Osborne will do anything as foolish or reckless as cutting the top rate of income tax again. Labour are unlikely to be handed any golden political gifts during the Chancellor’s hour long session at the dispatch box. But Miliband will want to find a way to drive home a key question – the one that always resonates on budget day – which party is “in touch with ordinary people”? Treasury and IFS analysis may help Labour on that score, proving that any “giveaways” are clawed back by the exchequer elsewhere.
But one Tory MP has already given Miliband his key line for today. Jackie Doyle-Price – defending one of the most marginal seats in the UK in Thurrock – has slammed the Tory failure to prove they are in touch with ordinary people. Writing for ConHome this morning, she said:
“The biggest impediment that this Party has when trying to secure a majority at the next election is that on one key question we are constantly perform badly. That is on the issue of whether the Party is in touch with ordinary people.”
When responding to the budget today, Miliband could do worse than to learn that quote verbatim.
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