Paul Waugh’s beaten us to it, but Ed Ball’s New Statesman article is a rallying cry to the left. He writes:
‘As we approach the most important general election for a generation, this is no time for introspection or defeatism. There’s never been a moment when Labour’s values and experience have been more relevant or necessary.’
And what are those values? Well, they’re not Blairite:
‘In public-service reform, we sometimes sounded as though private-sector solutions were always more efficient; and who can now doubt that, despite the tougher measures we brought in, financial regulation was not tough enough?’
The most telling statement is that Balls believes markets to be intrinsically unstable and therefore the state must reign supreme:
‘The biggest global recession in our lifetimes has not only required unprecedented action, it has also shattered some of the assumptions the right have clung to for decades.
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