Who Will Deliver The First Budget After The May 2015 General Election?

Who Will Deliver The First Budget After The May 2015 General Election?

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The Sunday Times are reporting (££) that

Ed Miliband has been urged to demote Ed Balls after the general election, amid simmering tensions in the Labour leadership over how to pay for a cut in university tuition fees.

A shadow cabinet member said if Miliband becomes prime minister he should move the shadow chancellor and accused Balls of behaving with “contempt” towards colleagues and “undermining the leader’s agenda”.

Frontbenchers attacked Balls last night for committing Labour’s two worst gaffes of the election campaign so far.

They said his reputation as a “safe pair of hands” had been shattered when he failed to name a single Labour business backer and told voters they should get a receipt for work done cash in hand, both of which attracted ridicule.

The tensions between the two Eds have been long known, so this isn’t a new thing.

The Sunday Times notes

There is a belief among Miliband’s allies that much of what Balls does is calculated to be of maximum benefit not to the Labour party but to his wife, Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary. She is among the favourites to succeed Miliband if he fails to win in May.

Some think Miliband should remove Balls from the Treasury if he wins. A shadow minister said: “Ed M will be in a strong position because he will have won when some people have written him off. He’ll be in a position to get rid of people who have not been loyal.”

On current polling, Labour will be the largest party in May, which should theoretically allow them to form the next government and provide the Chancellor of the Exchequer after the  election, at the time of writing, William Hill had a market up on Who Will Deliver The First Budget After The May 2015 General Election?

On the basis of this story some might wish to back Chuka Ummuna and Rachel Reeves at 7/1 and 14/1 respectively, it is a shame that Andy Burnham isn’t quoted. But if you think Ed Miliband will follow Lyndon Baines Johnson maxim on dealing with difficult colleagues Ed Balls is 11/8.

TSE

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