Ed Miliband says profound change is needed

Ed Miliband has warned that “profound change” is needed to ensure the UK’s economy does not return to recession.

The Labour leader called for better regulation of financial firms and urged the coalition to focus less on cutting the deficit and more on aiding growth.

Without new thinking the economy risked “sleepwalking” back to disaster, he told the CBI conference in London.

But the Conservatives said Mr Miliband offered no credible plan to deal with the deficit.

The Labour leader’s speech followed the publication of the government’s Spending Review, which set out plans for cutting the budget deficit by £81bn within four years.

Ed Miliband

The Conservatives and Lib Dems argue that this pace of change is necessary to rebalance the books quickly and improve the UK’s economic competitiveness.

Having told Andrew Marr that “the era of New Labour has passed”, Ed Miliband was surprisingly kind to the project when he addressed business leaders today. New Labour recognised the importance of economic efficiency as well as social justice, of wealth creation as well as the distribution of wealth, he told the CBI.

“Enterprise and job creation are fundamental to the good economy and good society, and I will lead a party that understands that at its core,” he said. It would be pro-business (the CBI loved that, naturally) – but “in a different way”.

I wonder if it will. Of course, when you talk to the employers’ trade union you have to be nice about business and employers. But is there a real change under the skin of Labour? Is there even a real change under the skin of Ed Miliband?

His solutions sounded – well, distinctly Brownian. A bit of subsidy here, a little tax rebate there, a support somewhere else, and firmer regulation all over.

And, of course, a Miliband administration would seek to “create jobs in the industries of the future”. Whatever they are. If you or I could predict what the industries of the future were, we’d be billionaires. I’m not quite sure how Miliband proposes to identify them.

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