Are Two Eds Worth More than One?

Ed Balls apologised yesterday for the part he and the Labour government played in the global regulatory failure. Today the other Ed gets booed at the Trades Unions congress which the New Statesman cynically said is exactly what he wanted to happen. The New Statesman is right. Miliband is seeking to prove that he is not run by the Unions and that Labour is moving away from its past. Labour will not be credible though until they admit to having recklessly overspent in the years 2003 to 2007 and ruined the golden inheritance left them in 1997 by the Tories. Only then will they have a chance to regain trust from the public to run the economy. In this so called age of openness Miliband's transparent use of the Union boos will not of itself persuade anybody of anything. To be taken seriously he will have to do much more than that to demonstrate that he is not in the pocket of the Trades Unions. He will have to accept that the so called cuts are necessary and that the balance between the private sector and the public sector on pensions, salaries and so on needs to be adjusted back towards the private sector. This means he will have to support the government should the Unions ballot their members on strike action. Leadership is a lonely and difficult position to be in as it often requires unpopular decisions to be made and no politician likes being unpopular. The current euro problem is being made worse by the lack of a leader who will say the structure needs to be reformed so that countries can be expelled or leave it and the quicker the better. It seems though that the market is pushing the eurozone to the point where Greece will have to default and leave with no thanks to the politicians.