First, let’s talk about what yesterday’s speech by Ed Balls was not: it was not a hammer blow to the welfare state. I still believe that the universal principle is an essential pillar of the welfare state, but it’s more than a little bit overwrought to claim that a policy that’s younger than I am is all that holds our civil disguise in place.

There is a frankly eccentric school of thought within the Labour party that on the one hand believes that the years 1997 to 2010 were 13 years of unremitting darkness, and on the other hand thinks that any reduction, deviation or abolition of any policies enacted in that time is the path to unconstrained Thatcherism. I think that the winter fuel allowance is brilliant; I think that by giving it to affluent pensioners, it is more likely to continue to be paid in a timely fashion, to be immune to the axes of Tory governments present and future, and to be an engine of social solidarity rather than division. But I’d also like to reverse the cuts to legal aid, and not to immiserate the working poor and, while we’re at it, I’d quite like a stimulus package too. And here’s the thing: I can’t have all of these things, so at some point, you have to move from discussing what it is you would like and start discussing what it is you want least. A social security system that doesn’t give something to everyone very rapidly gives nothing to nobody, but defending the universal principle doesn’t mean that we should die in the last ditch over who pays for Alan Sugar’s radiator.

That said, we should also be clear on the second thing Ed Balls’ speech yesterday wasn’t: enough. Labour will have to sell off more than a few sacred cows not only to win, but to govern effectively after 2015, but it should come back with more than a handful of distinctly ordinary-looking beans to show for it. By stepping hesitantly in the right direction, the leadership may end up with the worst of all possible worlds: a riled left and a still-sceptical right. Raising a hundred million – if that – by means-testing the winter fuel allowance might discomfort the left, but it isn’t anywhere close to tackling the fiscal crisis that Labour will inherit in 2015. While it might discomfit a couple of people on the internet, removing the winter fuel allowance from a handful of very rich pensioners is not going to make anyone’s life worse, but a great deal of the things the next Labour government will do will make a lot of people’s lives, whether that’s directly or indirectly.

Like the Great Wall of China, the Conservatives’ strategy can be seen from space: it’s to convince enough of the voters that Labour has neither the inclination or the ability to make decisions in a time of crisis. The challenge for Labour is to prove that it can; but the danger is that it sees merely discomfiting its flank as the same thing as appealing to the centre. The former requires only the slightest of concessions to economic reality, the latter requires real and deep sacrifices. But if Labour doesn’t prove that it can make difficult decisions, the party will find, in 2015 as in 2010, that those decisions are being made by the Conservatives.

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Stephen Bush writes a weekly column for Progress, the Tuesday review, and tweets @stephenkb

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Photo: Josh Newlove