How can Labour avoid being a useless Opposition in this week's Budget?

One of the toughest jobs in politics is responding to a Budget. It’s the job of the leader of the Opposition, and given the Labour Party has still got two months until it elects its chief, that job falls to Harriet Harman as interim leader. Therefore Harman has an even tougher version of one of the toughest jobs in politics, as she has to work out not just how to scrutinise the government’s spending plans, but also how to stop her party having an unpleasant fight over its stances on certain controversial cuts. If a cut is, in Labour’s view, wrong, then it will struggle to make much headway in opposing it if that opposition only starts in a few months’ time once a new leader is in place and they’ve worked out what they want to do. But similarly the Opposition’s political credibility will be damaged if it strikes a number of strident positions now but then U-turns on them later.