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Howard Reed From Compass Urges Ed Miliband To Offer An Alternative To The Coalition

Miliband

PA/The Huffington Post   First Posted: 26/01/2012 06:20 Updated: 26/01/2012 08:08

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Labour was warned today that it would hand the Conservatives an "easy win" at the next general election by jumping on the austerity bandwagon at "just the point it seems to be coming off the rails".

Compass, a centre-left think tank, claimed the party's new economic direction made it look like Labour had "wholly accepted" Chancellor George's Osborne's fiscal strategy.

In a report out today it suggests that voters have "scant reason" to believe a future Labour government would be any different from the last.

The party also has little to show for its 18 months of opposition in terms of publicly announced economic policy, it adds.

It follows an admission by shadow chancellor Ed Balls earlier this month that Labour accepted the Government's public sector pay freeze and could not promise to reverse Coalition spending cuts.

Unfortunately for Labour the strategy hasn't worked so far - polls taken in the week since Balls' apparent change in direction have shown Labour slipping, with one poll giving the Tories a five-point lead.

The report, White Flag Labour? Fiscal policy for the UK's next progressive Government, warns the party not to accept the "fallacies of Osbornomics", seizing on today's dismal official figures confirming the UK economy shrank by 0.2% in the last quarter of last year as proof the Government's plans are failing.

It states: "Ed Balls' new strategy of accepting Coalition spending cuts as a fait accompli risks making it look like Labour has wholly accepted George Osborne's fiscal strategy - demoralising Labour Party supporters who are fighting against them while allowing the Conservatives to dictate the terms of the economic debate."

The report claims it would be "no surprise" if the Chancellor announced in 2014 that his plan to eliminate the structural deficit was being pushed back to 2020.

Labour has a "clear duty" to the British public to highlight the "manifest flaws" of the Government's economic management, it adds.

Economist Howard Reed, author of the report, said: "Given the trouble that the Coalition's deficit reduction programme has run into, it would seem ludicrous for Labour to jump on board the austerity bandwagon at just the point it seems to be coming off the rails."

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Labour was warned today that it would hand the Conservatives an "easy win" at the next general election by jumping on the austerity bandwagon at "just the point it seems to be coming off the rails". ...
Labour was warned today that it would hand the Conservatives an "easy win" at the next general election by jumping on the austerity bandwagon at "just the point it seems to be coming off the rails". ...
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Krampus2
5 Fans
08:23 on 27/01/2012
The idle poor eh? I wonder what you actually mean by that. I am fortunate in that I earn a very good wage and I happily pay my taxes.
Remember also Tory Ben that society is judged by the way it treats it's vulnerable i.e. The sick the disabled the elderly and the poor, just because someone falls into this category you don't want your contribution to go their way this is the tory attitude.
So, what would you have done with these people? Come on we are waiting for your answer.
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alan king
10 Fans
17:14 on 26/01/2012
thats what we need to read a far left think tank, because if they think there centre left, they are like the two Eds clueless. I think in general anything i mean anything at all that comes out of labour or new labours mouth is laughable, to the fact they are now agreeing with the conseratives on what should happen more so than the liberals, they will be walking across the floor soon. They are only £ 8 billion plus out on the olympic figures you could add another £ billion to that over the next decade.
Lets re elect them we have room for about another 5 million asylum seekers, plus E U migrant workers who have no quota on coming here. Can"t wait you reep what you sow and anyone who kept voting for labour and labour councils have no right to moan on here. What i would say in in the next election how about a complete change from the two gravy train parties
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kohl
27 Fans
16:46 on 26/01/2012
If the policies the Labour party want Ed Mili to follow are anything like the ones they used before then we might as well start collecting fire wood and building mud huts 'cause we wont have anything left! Laboure MPs will of course, but us? Zilch!
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teamains
1 Fans
16:25 on 26/01/2012
milliband wants to grow up ditch path of t/blair labour is for social justice compassion , help ppl who cant help themselves, encourage manufactering thro various grants , tax insentives , stop asset stripping our country , make it nigh on imposible to move manufacturing out of uk thro loop holes,invest in british ppl ,stop ripoff privatiseing our NHS then perhaps he can be leader of labour party not another tory like blair
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ledolesiey
0 Fans
16:15 on 26/01/2012
They are now taking the pension credit from white pensioners, along with that goes their other rights ie free hospital parking, free dental treatment which foreigners still get. the country is no worth saving!!!!
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allanenergy
29 Fans
15:52 on 26/01/2012
Miliband seems to be more blue than red and Labour stand no chance at the next general election unless they go back to grass roots This guy is doing Cameron a huge favour by having no backbone
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figurewizard
20 Fans
15:44 on 26/01/2012
Recent examples of billions of pounds being handed over to senior executives as rewards for failure are indeed odious but if only we could say that by stopping that we could resolve our economic crisis. It was massive overspending by Labour that was responsible. They enjoyed the largest tax revenues in the history of UK governance and yet managed to not only spend all of it but hundreds of billions more in borrowings, including £68 billion for PFI and more billions by flogging off our gold reserves.

The coalition is not perfect by any means but they have one vital advantage for the rest of us - They're not Labour.
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Kris5
17 Fans
14:00 on 26/01/2012
The fact of the matter is millions of people are stuck in a rut, there are just not enough well paid jobs to go around. Graduates are stacking shelves in Tescos for peanuts. The only way to tackle the inequalities is to stop the greed of Bankers, Celebrities and over-paid Executives. We need policies to stop the greed and re-distribute the wealth so that anyone working in Britain has a decent standard of living. Some work hard all their lives and never have any money left after paying bills to enjoy life. That's unfair. It's like slavery. Products and Services are too expensive in Britain because of the greed of the rich.
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neilkwl
14 Fans
15:37 on 26/01/2012
Kris5 - I am in total support of your comments. There were 2 ways out of this dilema, the first and the most sympathetic to the population at large was to reduce the debt slowly but with determination. It keeps the money flowing and unemployment down. The second choosen by this right wing governmet is with massive austrity plan. It is the the right wing way to take from the needy and give to the rich quicker and faster. Puts the unemployment up, shrinks the economy and coming soon, high interest rates
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Kris5
17 Fans
13:27 on 26/01/2012
To Chilterns 1: I will attempt to complete your sentence for you: You said: "Complete the following sentence - "The UK has a public debt of £1 Trillion and this means we can go on spending, borrowing and taxing more because......" Britain continues to be one of the wealthiest countries in the world, the reason Britain is in a mess is because of the greed of the rich:The gap between the rich and the poor in Britain is the widest gap in Europe. Thus the low paid work hard all week and by the time they have paid all the essential bills, they have no money left to spend on buying products or going out to restaurants, theatres, etc. There's plenty of money in Britain, it is just that some people have far too much money and the majority of people have too little money. Unless the majority of people have more money in their pockets to spend, then more businesses will go down the pan. Redistribution of wealth makes sense. There's public dept because private shareholders and the rich are taking too much money out of the public purse. E.g. The Bankers caused the debt - let the Bankers and their rich supporters pay it back - they have enough money to pay it back.
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Chilterns1
2 Fans
13:09 on 26/01/2012
Could the Labour supporters who claim that the austerity programme is wrong, complete the following sentence "The UK has a public debt of £1 trillion and this means we can go on spending, borrowing and taxing more because..............
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murphilane
8 Fans
14:37 on 26/01/2012
What Labour? There is no Labour Party. What you have is another Right wing Party calling itself New Labour. And now that you right wing radicals have it all, you don’t even want to pay taxes, and without taxes we don’t have a Country. That’s all we have is a piece of un maintained land on which the peasant tries to exist in abject poverty, and poverty breeds communism and the unfettered greed of capitalism would have created it.
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jenglow
16 Fans
12:11 on 26/01/2012
Did anyone else see the obscene cost of the Olympics now? Getting on for 300 billion! Labour again got us into that. Why it has been allow to go on I will never know what could be done with that money either saved from borrowing or spent where it's needed. It's a disgrace and an outrage against the people.
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ronnie10
2 Fans
12:24 on 26/01/2012
All the torys would do with 300 billion is give it to foreigners or bring them to england and build houses for them and there extended familys
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gasmanxxxxx
15 Fans
13:00 on 26/01/2012
Not long ago Lord Coe was claiming it was coming in on budget, Looks like a load of boll#cks now.
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Kris5
17 Fans
11:53 on 26/01/2012
Politicians should have no pay rise this year. Afterall, Cameron said we were 'all in this (crisis) together.' Also, Politicians should be made to live on the same low pension as ordinary people have to. Also, cut all the expense accounts of Politicans. Cameron spent £8,000 to pay for one night in a posh hotel, then he has the audacity to tell the British Public that we are 'all in this together?' If Politicans had to work hard all week for just enough money to pay the bills and no money left to actually enjoy life, then perhaps they would come up with policies to create a fairer, more equal life in Britain. It is a life of slavery for millions of people.
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janno123
9 Fans
14:28 on 26/01/2012
They should also pay the full cost of their food and drink in the house of commons.
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Kris5
17 Fans
11:26 on 26/01/2012
Democracy and Freedom of Speech in Britain is meaningless/not worth the paper it is written on. What power/influence do the British people have in reality? We have the power to put a cross on a bit of paper once every five years. Apart from that - we have no power and the politicians never seem to listen. Politicians have a good standard of living therefore they don't care very much that ordinary people work hard all week and earn just enough money to pay the essential bills, after which - there's no money left to even go to a restaurant once a month to have a cheap meal out; no holidays, no money to buy a ticket for the theatre.... it's like a life of slavery for millions of people in Britain. No Politician hasthe guts to tackle the extremes of poverty and wealth in Britain. A minority of people made the effort and took peaceful protest action in London to complain about the greed of the rich and the exploitation of the low paid in Britain. Until a majority of people take peaceful protest action - then nothing will ever improve in Britain. The rich and powerful will just continue to live lives of luxury at the expense of the poor. E.g. The low paid are paying for celebrities to have lives of luxury (through TV Licenses, through having to pay more for products in shops) and the poor are footing the bill for the Bankers bonuses, etc.
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murphilane
8 Fans
10:55 on 26/01/2012
There is no opposition, they are all Tories of different shades of the darker side of blue, and people will put the old argument that we should always use our right to vote, for whom and for what? When you have no alternative and they are all the same. What is the point? People put the argument that we should have a free press. Free to do what? To be able to feed us propaganda on behalf of an extreme right wing parliament that are all capitalist running around like chickens without heads because they fail to recognise that capitalism in its present form has failed. Well my answer to those people who say these things is this. put the press in shackles until they earn the right to freedom and even then regulate them. and as far as my vote is concerned I do not have one so why should I keep them all happy by pretending that I do by going to polling booth to put my illiterate peasant X on a piece of paper.
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northern git
55 Fans
09:54 on 26/01/2012
It is difficult to exercise austerity when you have a minimum salary of £65000 a year, help with furnishingsecond homes, mortgages on second homes, allownaces, running offices,, travel, a salary which has more than doubled over twenty years and they are to get another raise in a few weeks time.
Labour gave ordinary councillors a salary of £1000 plus a month
Oh and if an MP only serves one full term of office he gets a severance pay of £12000.

try austerity on that
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