Labour is caught on a fork

Listen to John Prescott on the Today programme this morning and you may begin to understand the complexity of the task Labour faces. Prescott was putting the best gloss he could on Labour and the vastly incompetent civil service wasting hundreds of millions on regional fire stations. Listening to his bluster, even the most loyal Labour supporter might have been glad that the party was no longer in office. Prescott showed no remorse; no appreciation that the burden of taxation falls on working and middle class people, who need to hold on to every penny they can. As with so many left-of-centre politicians, he did not regard the waste of other people’s money as a sin.

According to the rules of the political game, Labour should realise how much damage its nonchalance with public funds has done it, and trim and triangulate accordingly. It should support cuts and make a point of denouncing the new regime’s extravagances.