Ed Miliband's financial blank page

I have disagreed with Paul Reynolds over his jaundiced view of the civil service, but I think he is spot on with this criticism of Labour:

At recent hustings (I’m a candidate in West Ham and doing some Newham-wide events) Labour incumbents robotically read through lists of extra spending promises, but dodge much else with bland statements of the blindingly obvious. They peddle the myth of the 2007 ‘global crisis’.

The truth is that the crisis originated in the UK and US and then affected severely only a few countries. There was no ‘'global financial crisis’ in Turkey, China, South America, SE Asia, Germany, Scandinavia or Australia (although of course they were later affected by reduced demand in USA and other countries). [My emphasis]

Labour spokespeople  still deny the UK’s economic vulnerability from  pre-2007 Labour over-borrowing, which left little room to deal with the crisis, and thus led to emergency cuts.

Maybe this explains Ed Miliband’s policies on preventing another financial crisis in the UK. Apart from a few vague populist promises the page is entirely blank.

Any cursory read of the financial press shows how banks are up to their old tricks, and how close we are to another financial sector crash. But surprisingly given their prior culpability, Labour has nothing to say about this. All the running on further crash-prevention has been made in government by Vince Cable, Lib Dem (former) MEP Sharon Bowles in the EU, and the anti-Cameron, Pro-EU Tory MP Andrew Tyrie in Parliament.

We can only presume the restart of Labour Blairite shoe-lace licking in the City is already well underway.

One should remember that key people directing the country's economic policy in the Blair Brown era are still in place in the Labour leader's group.