Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition does not *do* economics

Don’t you see? This Labour shadow government (no, don’t mock the afflicted*) does not do economics.

Ed Miliband and his happy little band are totally economics-averse after the Brown disaster. They are the guilty men (and women). They know it, we know it, and they know we know it. Having wrecked the economy and been chucked out by the electorate for it, they are battered, bleeding and bone-tired, this ‘new generation’ (wa-hay!) of discredited former ministers led by an uninspiring, perplexed Brown bag-carrier whom most of them did not want as Leader anyway. What they'd all really like is a good long break from all this Political Economy stuff, but politics is a real bitch, isn't it?

Labour has no say in how the country is run, economically or any other way, and won’t have for at least four years, so, fuck - why sweat it?

The electoral timetable having afforded him a breather – and a long one, if the coalition’s agreement holds – Ed Miliband has decided to abandon economics entirely until some sort of Plan B begins to coalesce out of the mists of his obvious confusion. Postman Pat, his brain entirely innocent of economic ideas, has been made Shadow Chancellor. The Labour Party’s offering on the subject is to comprise saloon bar wit, nothing more. Well, it’ll keep the back benches entertained.

You have to sympathise with Miliband Minor. Well, all right, you don’t, but it’s clear that the only way he could possibly engage with Osborne and the Treasury’s economists would be by letting the Balls duo off the leash, but that would be the end of him. So as far as economics goes, for now, we have dictatorship by coalition and no opposition whatsoever.

© 1959 Frankie Howard