Why some on the left, including Ed Balls, are reluctant banker-bashers
WHY isn’t the Labour Party tougher on the City? It seems a bizarre question. On the face of it, Labour show the hostility to high finance that might be expected of a left-wing party led by a man sometimes dismissed as “Red Ed”. Ed Miliband blames the financial crash for the recession and Britain’s fiscal predicament whenever he can. On June 5th the party said it would seek to amend the government’s budget, currently making its way through Parliament, so that the “one-off” tax on bankers’ bonuses imposed by the previous Labour administration is renewed for another year, with the revenue going to job schemes for young people and other social-democratic goodies.
Look closer, however, and the party’s attitude to banking is more complicated. Anger is leavened by memories of the City’s contribution to Labour’s spending splurge in office. Then there is a political calculation: Mr Miliband and his shadow chancellor, Ed Balls, who both advised Gordon Brown during his time at the Treasury, are too closely associated with the finance-led boom years to repudiate the City altogether now. ...
"
Comments