Why I’m voting for Ed Balls

By Antonia Bance / @antoniabance

Okay, I don’t do these things. I don’t write paeans of praise to middle-aged white guys in slightly crumpled suits, painting them as the heir to (insert hero), the saviour, the Messiah, the second coming etc. I’ve not spent the past months retweeting every utterance of my candidate or asking people to twibbon-up their support. So, I promise you this isn’t going to be one of those saccharine pieces that have filled our feed readers and bored us to tears all summer long.

Here we go. I’m voting for Ed Balls, and I think you should too.

Of course, if you wanted, I could hymn Ed’s birthday cake baking skills and his drumming abilities, I could point to his easy manner and his willingness to stand his round (proved to me in person in an Oxford pub after yet another hustings). But I won’t. And I promise I won’t tell you he gets it.

My number one issue going into this leadership election is this: I do not want a leader who’ll compromise with the Tories and the Lib Dems on cuts.

Here’s my rationale. Advancing economic equality is why I joined the Labour Party. I think Labour offers the best chance, the best route, to a more equal society. By the skin of our teeth, 13 years of Labour government just about succeeded in constraining the gap between rich and poor, not letting it rise and rise. Brilliant policies – the national minimum wage, tax credits, Sure Start, investment in education and in health, never settling for a second-class service for those of lesser means – but even with all of these we didn’t narrow that gap. But – crucially, given the inheritance of Thatcher we struggled against – nor did it increase substantially. All our effort resulted in holding it steady.

I wish we’d done more in the good times. I wish we’d put aside our timidity, realised the potential of a Labour government that was mistress of all it surveyed, and bent our collective will to narrowing the gap between those tearing away at the top and the rest.

We didn’t. But we just about held it steady – an achievement in itself.

And now, in bad times, we see how the bad choices of a government that doesn’t care will increase inequality. Every week there’s more evidence about how cutting – whether it be welfare, BSF, regional development funding, support for industry, primary care trusts or a hundred other things – hurts the poorest hardest.

Over the past weeks and months, Ed Balls has been the only candidate who stands strongly against this. The way back to power isn’t about showing that we’re a serious party who’d cut just as much but somehow more nicely, more carefully, just the fat, just efficiency savings… The way back to power is showing that there is an alternative. That Labour stands for growth, for investment in industry, and for a state that supports and enables, not one that doesn’t care and withdraws when it’s most needed. That’s the Labour that Ed Balls will lead.

I could tell you about how Ed’s run a great campaign (he has). I could mention how he’s talked about policy and come up with some great ideas (go read his housing plans, by the way). Unlike most of these sorts of articles I’ll even tell you where I disagree with him (His comments about migrants devalued their contribution to the UK; to his credit he heard me out and explained his position. We still don’t agree.)

I could talk at length about how Ed’s learned from having to fight hard for Morley and Outwood, and from listening to how we won some of our hardest battles around the country. He knows we need to transform how we organise elections on the ground. He gets it. (Dammit, I said it. Sorry).

All of this is true. But as I said at the start, for me, Labour is about advancing economic equality or it is nothing. Our new leader has many tasks. But the most pressing is setting out a fair Labour alternative to madcap deficit reduction and slash-and-burn public spending cuts. Under this government, inequality is racing already; it’s up to Labour to show it doesn’t have to be this way. Only one candidate stood up and told us how he’d do it, and why. Go read what he said here. That candidate is Ed Balls, and I’ll be voting for him.