The coalition are making a land-grab on Labour territory – we should be encouraged

This Autumn Statement has neatly illustrated the problem that any opposition faces when announcing policies outside of election period: if they’re any good, the government will steal them.

While there are few direct lifts, the Chancellor’s statement was the clearest indication yet that the Coalition is concerned that Labour’s eye-catching initiatives have, well, caught the public’s eye. In the last few weeks, we’ve seen the government, ahem, “borrow” Labour policies on pension charges and payday loans. Again today, casual observers may have heard pledges to cut energy bills, build more affordable homes and keep small business rates down, and wondered if they were in fact listening to a Labour politician speaking. The policy-specifics are of course different, but there can be no denying that many of these announcements were all about heading off Labour’s cost-of-living momentum.

Ed Balls’ response should have been a straightforward one: these measures don’t go far enough and, besides, why should we trust you to deliver when living standards have gone down, not up, on your watch? And to be fair, that’s broadly what he tried to say. The difficulty the Shadow Chancellor had was in trying to make himself heard over Government backbenchers, who were feeling rather pleased at the good economic news the Chancellor had just brought them. From their gleeful heckling, one would never have guessed that it was three years overdue.

Far from being disheartened at the Coalition land-grab on Labour territory, the party should in fact take great encouragement from it. It has shown that Labour’s overarching theme is a potent one. The challenge now is to populate this framework with further examples that continue to demonstrate that Labour is ahead of the curve and closer to people’s real concerns than the government.

The broader economic context does indeed seem to be improving. Growth this year is now forecast to be double what was expected in March and has been revised upwards for 2014 also. But again, this needn’t be to Labour’s detriment. Returning economic growth may serve simply to reinforce Labour’s message that the link between growth and living standards is broken. If Ed(s) and co can make this case persuasively enough, then economic recovery alone will not hand the Conservatives victory in 2015.

As Ed Balls alluded to in his response, this Autumn Statement was an attempt to “shoot Labour’s fox”. But if this fox is canny enough, it can stay one step ahead of the crosshairs.

Simon Fitzpatrick works on financial policy at Cicero Consulting