Labour’s response to Hunt’s Autumn Statement has not been to criticise what he proposed as it’s what they would have done. They are arguing that the present situation, where people’s real living standards are falling, is the result of Tory mismanagement of the economy over the past 12 years. This assumes that if there had been a different government or a different policy this wouldn’t have happened.
It’s the old illusion that governments can control the way capitalism works, when experience as well as theory shows this not to be the case. It’s not the Tories who are the problem but the capitalist system.