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As others have said, the idea that we should 'balance the books' fundamentally plays into austerity narratives.
I'm afraid I just don't accept that. Being able to explain where the money comes from is a crucial competency test for voters. Is it wrong that they see national finances as akin to household finances? Yes. Should voters have a better understanding of national finances? Probably. Is it worth Rachel Reeves expending her precious political capital explaining to people why they're wrong on this as a pre-requisite of getting her vision out there? Absolutely not. You engage with the world as you find it, not as you want it to be. We can reframe the narrative when we are trusted; trying to do that before we're trusted is not going to work.
ReekBlefs-
I'm afraid I just don't accept that.
You should accept it, it's true. Again, I've not heard/read exactly what was said but providing costings etc. is good, and was at least a line that could be used as a fall back with Corbyn and his fully costed plans, especially as the Tories have demonstrated the true magic money tree gun reality of what can be done, but any mention of "balance the books" should be avoided as it's just a euphemism for austerity now.
snottyotter
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?