Very strong +0.8% growth in Q3

[longfingernails]

Labour doommongering shown to be baseless, yet again.

Yup, negative, uncommitted politics, which lead to a Labour defeat, and a coalition government.
No-one knew who to vote for. Many, particularly the traditional Labour voters, didn't bother at all.

It's time for Labour to offer a cogent strategy that the country can identify with.

The country knows it wants the deficit dealt with and it knows it will need cuts. It's how to manage those cuts that's important to us.

The same can be said of the Tories though

They should have had a landslide but the vagueness was too much

I agree there should be more courage in stating what you stand for - we know now they are in power what they stand for but they never really positioned themselves there in the GE campaign ( this is a crucial part of integrity), however for Ed at the moment, there is a problem because noone really knows whether this thing can be solved. So why commit if you don't know - some would say that he should say he doesn't know for sure what the right way forward is......but we all know the press would have a field day with that.

I just think if Labour wants to boost its credibility then it needs to think of alternatives and present them to the public. Having Alan Johnson say he wants tax rises but he is open ended about which ones just won't cut it.

" we all know the press would have a field day with that."

And the press would be right to do so. You can hardly expect voters to follow you if your message is 'I'm not sure what I'm doing but will play it by ear'. Those who want to lead us have to nail their colours to the mast and commit to a strategy. If the circumstances change, fair enough, the plan changes ... but having no plan will not get you elected.

Exactly Chil

But there isn't an election coming up anytime soon so what's the rush?

I agree with LadyBlaBlah on this one.

Any strategy to get us out of our economic hole will be open to criticism.

Ed M had the pick of two economists with treasury experience to be his Shadow Chancellor and yet he picked Alan Johnson.

Clearly, he didn't want someone who would be tempted to devise an alternative to the Coalitions economic plan (and I'm sure Balls would have been difficult to hold back).

So, Ed M is going to sit and wait for the Coalition to mess up. Of course, he will help that process along, where he can . And there will be enough vague hints about taxing the rich, closing tax loopholes, and delays in reducing the deficit, to give the impression that there really is an easy, pain free alternative.