Westminster rumour has it that Yvette Cooper, the shadow work and pensions secretary, is being lined up to be shadow chancellor. The logic is that Ed Balls has made it impossible to serve in that role, certainly under David Miliband, having said he disagrees with Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling — and David Miliband — on the need to halve the deficit in four years. Balls has stated:
I told Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling in 2009 that – whatever the media clamour at the time – even trying to halve the deficit in four years was a mistake.
Some say, too, that Ed Miliband, who has been more ambiguous about the deficit reduction plan, would anyway be reluctant to put Balls in such a senior position after the two men’s relationship has suffered considerably during this campaign. Cooper is seen as a sensible choice because, insiders say, “you get some of Ed in there” without having Balls himself, while Cooper is an economics expert and former financial journalist in her own right.
But in a little-noticed interview on the BBC’s Daily Politics today, Cooper backed her husband’s position and not that of Darling and David Miliband. In Labour-land, that is significant because it means that on the logic of Balls being ruled out of the shadow chancellor job, Cooper now is out of the running too.
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