Today sees the evil Fabians holding their “The Economic Alternative” conference and Ed Balls is the keynote speaker.  To raise the curtain he has an interview with Mary Riddell in the conference edition of the Fabian Review. Print deadlines however mean the interview was given some weeks ago when the party line repeated ad nauseuam was different to what it is this morning. In the interview Balls says of the Tory deficit reduction strategy “Nobody in the Labour Party should get into the idea that it has to be this way”.

What a difference to his Guardian interview this morning in which he claims “My starting point is, I am afraid, we are going to have keep all these cuts.”

Same line of questioning, very different answers. The reality of public scepticism regarding Labour’s credibility on the economy and pressure from Shadow Cabinet realists combined with the weakness of Ed Miliband’s authority has forced Ed Balls to switch to George Osborne’s ‘Plan A’. There is no alternative.