Facing Both Ways

(More apt but © cartoon here)

On today's Daily Politics Harriet Harman confirmed (though not without considerable attempted wriggling) what Ed Balls' latest utterances on how Labour would handle our economy already told us – that Labour are trying to face both ways at once.

Unfortunately, as usual for the BBC, the video clip cannot be embedded here so you'll need to follow the above link for the (just short of) three-minute section of the programme on this topic.

Notice that, near the end, Ms Harman refers to Labour around the country negotiating "with their Unions" – now, I wonder what that really means? I thought it was the Unions who owned them, especially UNITE who are the party's biggest donor...

It turns out, as the ever-sharp Jo Coburn managed to tease out of Harriet, that Labour opposes the cuts but would itself make cuts, would continue the public sector pay freeze "to protect jobs", and openly disagreed with UNITE's Len McCluskey who effectively co-owns the Labour Party anyway...

UPDATE: Ed[ward] Miliband is working from exactly the same script, so we can safely assume this has all come from briefing that has no doubt gone to all the Shadow Cabinet member.

Labour do seem to be all over the place, although (rather perversely) the McCluskey business might do the party leader some good, and I have a feeling they aren't going to recover from this any time soon, if ever!