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As others have said, the idea that we should 'balance the books' fundamentally plays into austerity narratives. The books have never been balanced and they likely never will. The economy is not a household budget so rather than reinforce those narratives—which, if they continue to circulate as 'common sense' will thwart the possibility of the massive investment required to decarbonise—Labour should have been challenging them.
I was being overly forceful in my earlier post about Labour being to the right of the Tories economically, but everything I had seen until then suggested a complete lack of imagination from Labour in terms of state or public investment. Reeves had suggested for instance some kind of extragovernmental 'sensible spending' body which would further divorce a Labour treasury from the ability to enact bold fiscal policies. This kind of idea is fundamentally neoliberal—the ordoliberals in particular would be very pleased by it. On top of that, in the context of fuel price hikes, Starmer refused to back the nationalisation of the big six energy companies; this is a popular policy and clearly in my eyes the right thing to do.
All this at a time when the Tories are engaged (at least rhetorically) in a kind of Right Keynesianism where they promise massive regional investment projects, and in which COVID has demonstrated that the idea that 'we just can't afford it' simply isn't true. Where money goes is a political choice as much as an economic one and Labour should be making that clear.
That said, Reeves' green investment proposal looks good. But after the 10 pledges fiasco, why should any of us believe a thing the leadership has to say?
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bens0n
@ReekBlefs
Why do so many on the left think that being able to balance the books is somehow being pro austerity, or a right wing concept? We are not trusted on the economy - the media will check our homework in a way that they don't for the Tories. Having answers to those challenges is vital if we want to be credible.
I don't think Rachel Reeves proposal to scrap business rates is in any way 'to the right of the Tories' nor do I think her proposal to support a global minimum corporation tax is in any way 'pro austerity'. I think her whole argument is that austerity is not fiscally responsible. It's possible to argue with both the heart AND the head.