Labour fails to learn lessons

For many voters, the boom and ruinous bust we saw under a government that had promised to consign such peaks and troughs to the past means this requires a giant leap of faith. Yesterday, Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls sought to convince us that Labour does in fact possess the fiscal competence required to speed up the recovery started by the Tory-led coalition.

Yet too many of his party’s pronouncements point to a return to the bad old days of spend, spend, spend.

Increasing the minimum wage, scrapping the bedroom tax, restoring the child trust fund, guaranteeing a job for all over-25s who have been out of work for two years – these all cost money. And it’s money that, after years of Labour profligacy, the country simply does not have.

But Mr Balls, the MP for Morley and Outwood, is keen to go even further – pledging to give working parents 25 hours of free childcare a week if Labour wins power in 2015, having already promised that all parents of primary school children will be able to get “wraparound” childcare, meaning children can be left at school from 8am to 6pm.

It is a transparent bribe to those working families who have struggled over the last three years but whose votes will decide the next election. In that sense it is little different to the Liberal Democrats’ free school meals plan, yet once again one burning question remains. How would it be paid for?

The answer – as it always tends to be with Labour – is by targeting the wealth creators through the reinstatement of the 50p tax rate, even though it lost the Exchequer money, as well 
as increasing the bank levy and bringing in a new mansion tax.

Yet, according to Treasury officials, this would still leave a £28bn black hole in Labour’s plans – the equivalent of £1,000 extra government debt for every family.

Ed Balls may say he is happy for the Office for Budget Responsibility to run the rule over his figures, but even the average man or woman in the street can see that Labour’s numbers simply don’t add up.

Doubts over HS2

THERE is apparently one area of spending that even Ed Balls baulks at. In reaffirming that Labour will not offer a “blank cheque” to the high-speed rail project, he took a swipe at the Government for the way it has “totally mismanaged” a scheme whose costs have shot up to £50bn.

If the Shadow Chancellor’s scepticism bore more than a whiff of political point-scoring, not least as Labour has previously signalled its support for HS2, the doubts expressed by one of the major figures in the British transport industry carry more clout.

Phil White, the former chief executive of National Express, a firm which grew from a Yorkshire bus operator into one of Britain’s top transport groups, tells this newspaper today that the Government could secure a better return if it spent “a little less money, more quickly” on the existing railway infrastructure.

His comments underline the doubts that have come to encircle HS2 since it was launched to great fanfare in Leeds at the start of the year.

It is not hard to see why, given the way in which the case for high-speed rail has shifted from its original claim that it will boost business by shaving an hour off journey times from Yorkshire to London to one that emphasises the benefits of the extra capacity it will provide.

Equally, there can be no denying that the assertions being made of HS2 in terms of its ability to kickstart growth in the North will remain largely theoretical until the line is built.

Yet for a region that has been starved of significant investment in its transport infrastructure for so long, 
the scheme represents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

As the British Chambers of Commerce pointed out earlier this month, the M25, the Jubilee Line and the Channel Tunnel were all fiercely opposed and contested before their construction, yet today it is hard to imagine the country without them. HS2 has the potential to be no different, provided it is kept on track and on budget.

Good urners

IF it had not been for an injury to Tim Bresnan, Yorkshire would today have four cricketers in the squad that will travel to Australia to defend the Ashes.

There is an old saying in cricket that a strong Yorkshire means a strong England. The county’s achievement in finishing second in the championship while three of its star names played their part in this summer’s win over Australia means that phrase once again has some currency.

Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow will look to repeat the feat Down Under this winter, while White Rose teammate Gary Ballance is eyeing his first Test cap after a successful domestic season.

Tim Bresnan will also travel in the hope that he might recover to play some part in retaining the urn.

With that task expected to be far tougher than it was this summer, Yorkshire grit is likely to be just what is required.