After a flat speech from Ed Balls, what is Labour conference holding its breath for?

One of the curious traditions of Labour conference is that directly after the Shadow Chancellor’s speech, hard copies of his wise words are sold outside the conference hall. Any fiscally responsible Labour types trying to make difficult decisions about how to spend their money might be best advised to keep their £1 in their pockets for the time being, though. Today was not Ed Balls’ finest hour.

It can’t just be that many people at Labour are exhausted after the Scottish campaign to react to their Shadow Chancellor’s speech. The reaction of the conference hall was far too flat for the last conference economy speech before the general election. And the reason for that was that there were no new announcements. Aside from two quite small policies, briefed overnight, on capping child benefit increases and cutting ministerial pay, Balls simply reminded the party faithful of previous promises that they like the most.