Miliband fails first test by miscasting Alan Johnson

Not the least skill required of a political leader is judgement, and especially judgement in the people around him. On that basis, Ed Miliband has flunked his first serious test in appointing Alan Johnson as shadow chancellor. I would even go so far as to say that Labour would be far better served by Mr Johnson as leader – reassuringly right wing and with a great life story to sell – and the nerdy and crafty Ed chucking bricks at George Osborne.

Mr Johnson is political gold, but rather miscast in the world of cyclically adjusted fiscal deficits; he just looks like he’d be bored stiff by the wonkish stuff, but economics is unusually wonkish just now.

Ed Balls was the obvious choice; even if his polices were wrong (and time will tell on that) he’s be able to get away with it via bluster and cleverness. Maybe Ed was too scared of him. But Balls won’t be going away. Nor his missus, who must be almost as disappointed. Still, at least they won’t have to get divorced now.

http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2010/10/08/miliband-fails-first-test-by-appointing-alan-johnson/

Surely the top Job Spec for a shadow chancellor is economic savvy?

I don't like Ed Balls but he knows his stuff.

The Skin

as a person that is going to be important not his understanding of economic theory (most of which is unscientific clap trap anyway). Unlike most politicians Johnson has had a fairly ordinary job so he knows the type of lives that most people lead something Osbourne, Balls, Cooper etc can never do. When the cuts bite it is going to be interesting to see how well our current millionaire Chancellor is going to play with the public compared with a man who once actually had to work for a living. Johnsons lack of a training as an economist is unlikely to be too much of an issue as there are plenty of bright people with this background who can help him unpick Osbornes policies. Moreover, Parliamentary questions etc are unlikely to devolve into academic discussions about hedonic deflators etc. Johnson is there to highlight Osborne as an insensitive, elitist and out of touch with ordinary people not to be the Chancellor in any future Labour administration

On a more immediate level the Tory press such as the Mail today had articles attacking Balls and Cooper over their 'privileged' background which were obviously written in the expectation that one of them would be Shadow Chancellor. The stories fell completely flat because the two individuals were Shadow Home Secretary and Shadow Foreign Secretary, positions where this was less of an issue (in fact of no interest at all regarding the second job).

In this respect at least Miliband has proved he is capable of wrong footing his opponents. He has gone up in my estimation. I think the boy may have a chance.

I agree it is a lost opportunity not putting someone in there who can challenge the government.

Unless of course Ed is thinking that the backlash that the government gets will be redirected to labour and therefore he may as well not damage any of his preferred candidates and he has offered up Alan as a ritual sacrifice

Yes, I think there's a lot more to Ed Miliband than meets the eye and he may prove to be just the bhoy to tame some of the Big Beasts.

Time will tell.

The Skin

He's standing opposite George Osborne who doesn't have much economics in his C.V. either.