Ed Balls, Labour and the S word

Sorry really does seem to be the hardest word for Labour!

Ed Balls is now saying that Labour supports a pay freeze for Public Sector workers and won't seek to reverse expenditure cuts.

On Public Sector pay he said:

It is now inevitable that public sector pay restraint will have to continue through this parliament. Labour cannot duck that reality and won't. There is no way we should be arguing for higher pay when the choice is between higher pay and bringing unemployment down.
I know there will be some people in the trade union movement and the Labour party who will think of course Labour has got to oppose that pay restraint in 2014 and 2015. That is something we cannot do, should not do and will not do.

And on the expenditures cuts he said:

My starting point is, I am afraid, we are going to have keep all these cuts. There is a big squeeze happening on budgets across the piece. The squeeze on defence spending, for instance, is £15bn by 2015. We are going to have to start from that being the baseline. At this stage, we can make no commitments to reverse any of that, on spending or on tax. So I am being absolutely clear about that.

There was some additional waffle and some luke-warm support for the other Ed but nowhere does he say Labour was again wrong on the economic issues - nowhere.  I have scoured the leftist blogs (its okay I was wearing disposable gloves so I don't think anything rubbed-off) - but nowhere do I see the S word.

As I said earlier, Labour can apologise for the 1848 Irish potato famine, they can apologise for the UK's role in the slave trade but economic failure, failure to adequately regulate the banking sector  - nothing to say sorry for, according to their leftist vision. 

Ed Balls was at the very heart of the incompetency that was Labour's economic 'policy'.  Not on the periphery, he was an economics advisor to Gordon Brown (sorry for using such bad language) and  then he became a government minster, all the while, being one of Gordon's inner cabal. 

Labour supporters must be in a whirl - how can the cuts be wrong one minute (per the 2 Eds) and suddenly ok the next.  Same for the pay freeze.  Flip-Flopping in Westminster used to be confined to MPs and their second homes but now Ed Balls has brought this into a core area of Labour policy.

Can I expect them to support my campaign to get Grantham to properly recognize Margaret Thatcher?

Miliband re-launch sensation

Bet the title caught you by surprise.  Miliband and sensation in the same sentence.  The so-called re-launch might just as easily have passed you by, what with Tesco knocking 30p off of a dozen eggs and still giving Club Points!!  (Just kidding!)

Seriously though.

I would have expected any statement from Ed to have started:

"We are sorry."

"Let me say that again.  We are VERY sorry."

"We got it spectacularly wrong on Public Spending.  We were way too arrogant and conceited when we said we have abolished 'boom and bust' - I was there and I know how we strutted around!"

"We were wrong (boy that is a difficult phrase, to say!) to focus on unaffordable spending and not impose adequate regulation on the banking sector"

"Equally, myself and my other Ed have been wrong to keep on banging on about not making cuts and spending our way out of the recession."

"As a fair-minded member of the media or public, you know I couldn't just get elected and then ditch all these sacred cows, overnight.  Didn't you?  You must have expected me to show some deference to the union chaps that were kind enough to elect me."

"So now I am going to follow David's lead (Cameron that is, not my brother) and try to get people focused on 'responsible capitalism' (got a nice ring to it, don't you think?).  Of course there will be times I will over-step the mark and damage a business or two, but who will really notice? We can always blame that on the policies of the last government (Note to self - should I really say that?) "

"Some are saying that by now my poll ratings should be turning upwards.  Well to them I say, we are three years into this downturn, if the economy can't turn up, why do you expect me to?  I know some would say that with such a gloomy picture, Labour should look to be in a better position but how can I help it if The Guardian can't increase it's readership?!  After all we did for them, with thousands of pages of jobs and stuff - ungrateful, if you ask me!  Same for all those public sector workers - we gave them everything - okay much of it on other people's money but still..... "

Just why does Labour have a problem saying sorry for its mistakes?  It said sorry for Slavery, for the Irish Famine but can't find it in themselves to say sorry for their failings.

We have all heard the expression 'a labour of love'.  Now we know that Labour is the same as Love - it means you never have to say sorry!