The significance of Ed Balls’s speech, and what it means for Ukip

Ed Balls’s speech today is significant for two reasons. First, it implied that a Labour government in 2015 would not spend more on current spending. But, rather, it would borrow more to fund higher capital spending—what Gordon Brown used to calling ‘borrowing to invest’. This, I take it, means that a 2015 Labour government wouldn’t introduce the five point plan for the economy that Balls has previously outlined.

The second was the announcement that Labour would stop winter fuel payments to higher and top rate taxpayers. This will save about a £100 million a year, which is hardly enough to give Labour a reputation for fiscal rectitude.

But it does concede crucial ground on universality. It accepts that in these times, benefits should be targeted on those who need them most. There is no intellectual difference between Balls’s position on winter fuel payments and the coalition’s on child benefit.

The Labour leadership is hotly denying they’ve abandoned universality.