The budget from hell

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

Writing for Tribune this morning, Ed Balls attacked the budget as an “ideological assault on our public services” and “the budget from hell”, as he continued his assault on the economic policies of the new government.

Balls has seemed the most comfortable of the leadership candidates at challenging the government, and rarely misses an opportunity to do so. His article this morning combined defending Labour’s economic record (which he obviously has a significant stake in), with an attack on the underlying ideology behind the coalition cuts:

“this was not an unavoidable budget. It was purely ideological. George Osborne does not need to wipe out the deficit in five years. He wants to use the consequences of the recession as a cover to roll back the state and achieve in five years what the Tories did in eighteen.”

“The reason we have a deficit is not because of ‘reckless spending’ but because of a global financial crisis which required unprecedented action. Tax revenues fell and spending rose as a consequence – and if we had not allowed public spending to rise recession would have turned to depression.”

Balls has had a high media profile over the past few weeks: his website is up and running, he has an organisation in place and he has spent the last ten days zig-zagging across the country meeting party members. Ed has been an impressive candidate, perhaps surprising many who had underestimated him. Although he performed poorly in our recent straw poll, I wouldn’t be surprised if he performs better next time, and in the final vote itself.