Less soap opera, and more policy grit, in today’s batch of Ed Balls files. There is, for
instance, a lot on Gordon Brown’s proposed Bill of Rights (here, here, here and here), which is as ambrosia for future political historians, but is fairly turgid
reading even for today’s political anoraks. Likewise the charts and doodlings related to the structure of Brown’s Downing Street. Yet some things do stand
out. Here are a few of them:
i) What the Treasury says, Brown didn’t do. You’ve got to admire the Treasury’s attempt to inject some realism into the fiscal calculus back in 2006. “Flat real” spending — i.e. public spending that rises only in line with inflation, and not more — will be the “rule rather the exception” in the years to come, they say. And one can only assume it’s because they looked at the widening divide between spending and tax receipts, and realised that such a precarious position couldn’t be sustained.
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