ECONOMIC credibility.
It is the key to winning the next General Election.
At present, the polls suggest that, despite the horrendous hole Britain's economy is in, the Tories remain ahead of Labour on who is best to manage the nation's money.
Part of the art of Opposition is timing; when to hold back and when to put flesh on the bones of policy.
This week, responding to criticism that Labour had been looking particularly skeletal, the party leadership decided to begin the fleshing-out process,
But it did not go well.
On Monday, Ed Balls, the Shadow Chancellor, revealed Labour would scrap the winter fuel allowance for better-off pensioners – a Liberal Democrat suggestion. But this raised concerns about the party's commitment to universal benefits.
Also, the Shadow Chancellor raised the prospect of regional benefits, that is, paying different rates in different parts of the UK. He pointed to the higher housing costs in London.
Yet this might be the road to political perdition. The Coalition toyed with the idea of regional pay and quickly realised the electoral price of proposing paying public sector workers at different levels in different parts of the country. One Nation it ain't. Not stopping at winter fuel allowance, we now learn Labour would not reverse the Coalition withdrawal of child benefit for better-off families; a policy it once denigrated.
Today, Mr Miliband will talk tough and insist Labour would reform social security "with the right values". This will mean a cap on welfare spending; Labour voted against the Coalition's £26,000 benefit ceiling last year.
While it supported the idea of a cap in principle, it felt the form taken was unfair. Mr Balls spoke of "iron discipline".
Mr Miliband today will promise a "laser focus" on spending money wisely.
He will also talk of building more homes to reduce housing benefit costs, tackling low pay, and will float the idea of paying different rates of Jobseeker's Allowance depending on how long a person has paid into the system. This again might prove rather divisive.
The ill-timed leaking of the policy U-turn on child benefit provided David Cameron with a large stick with which to beat Mr Miliband at PMQs.
Nick Clegg denounced the Labour "flip-flop", the SNP accused it of being "joined at the hip" with the Tories on welfare, while union chief Mark Serwotka accused Mr Miliband of parroting the Conservatives and offering "austerity-lite".
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article