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Sunday 27 May 2012

Tuesday, 21st April 2009

Balls in trouble

Fraser Nelson 8:51pm

Life is about to get worse for Ed Balls. Remember Ken Boston, the sacked head of the QCA exams quango who was sacked over the SATS exams fiasco? Well he is now released from the purdah of his contract, and we have been waiting for a while to hear his side of the story – namely that Balls and his deputy, Jim Knight misled both Parliament and the Sutherland Inquiry. He has written a letter laying out the porkie pies he claims that Balls and Knight served up, and I gather the BBC will run the story tomorrow. For example, he claims – staggeringly – that Knight concocted meetings that he was supposed to have attended. And Balls told Parliament that he, the loyal minister, had asked the QCA for assurances that the SATS exams were on track. Not so, says Boston, this was “fiction”. And one which he thinks was designed to blacken his name. As he says in the letter:

“This flawed evidence has been used to portray me as complacent, disengaged and constantly beleaguered by ministers with questions which I was unable to answer ... Although this is far from the truth, it was not corrected by ministers or officials at draft report stage. And it has been used by ministers to my serious disadvantage.”

He will say more tomorrow when he is is due before the Commons Children, Schools and Families Committee. Yes: tomorrow. 22 April. Day of the Budget. A very good day to bury bad news and a good day for Barry Sheerman, chair of the committee, to have the famously angry Dr Boston to sound off. So Balls will have a very bad news cycle tomorrow – for about three hours. But we will be following it here at Coffee House. If Balls misled parliament then you know the rules – he has to correct the record. Let’s see how it all plays out.

UPDATE: Team Balls gets in touch to say that they are making public new information. On 9 Feb, Jim Knight 'fessed up to having "inadvertently conflated two separate meetings," and wrote a letter to Lord Sutherland saying as much. But how much does that affect Dr Boston's wider complaints? We'll see when the Select Committee meets today.

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Bernard from Horsham

April 21st, 2009 9:19pm Report this comment

misled?

Hawkeye

April 21st, 2009 9:25pm Report this comment

Wowee!! Who is next for shooting the Balls of the govt? He's got Guido working one side and this other fella - Ken Boston - working him over as well. Who else will get stuck in?

Who else has Balls upset?

Whatever happened to that exHBOS chappie who was going to dish the dirt on Goodwin, Brown and (presumably) Balls? Will he be joining the frenzy to finish off Mr Balls?

Moraymint

April 21st, 2009 9:49pm Report this comment

Watching and waiting for each new shocking revelation to emerge from this pathetic, unravelling, travesty of a Government makes me feel like the ball in a pinball machine.

I'm being thumped and walloped from one place to another, barely able to figure out which way things are going, what's going to hit me next, where from, at what speed and with what impact on little me.

Is it just me, or has this shocking, dishonourable, shambles of a Government led politics into some hitherto unknown pitch black and obscenely smelly place? Have politics and politicians ever been this unremittingly awful?

Can Dr David Starkey enlighten us please? Are you there David? Help. Help.

Oh God, and then there was that ludicrous, farcical little episode with Brown on YouTube today. What the hell's happening? I think I'm going mad.

adrian drummond

April 21st, 2009 9:50pm Report this comment

Brown spawned a monster.

wonderfulforhisage

April 21st, 2009 9:53pm Report this comment

"Crisis, what crisis?"

"Rules, what rules"

AndyLeeds

April 21st, 2009 9:58pm Report this comment

Yipeeeeeeeeeee. Lets hope Balls can be nailed like McPoison.

Ben Elford

April 21st, 2009 10:18pm Report this comment

I'm sure I won't be the first to say:

Balls in trouble: so what?

TGF UKIP

April 21st, 2009 10:49pm Report this comment

Sounds like a good one for Dave to go on at PMQs. Bet he doesn't though.

The one he should definitley go on though is Damian Green and the DPP's and the Home Affair's Committees responses last week. "Will the PM apologize and will he instruct his Home Secretary to apologize?"

Brown won't apologize and Dave can then follow up with "Did the Cabinet Secretary consult the PM before the police were called in?"

hadrian

April 21st, 2009 10:51pm Report this comment

Never, ever let them off the hook.

Humpty-Dumpty

April 21st, 2009 11:07pm Report this comment

Brown's House of Cards is falling down...............

Silent Hunter

April 21st, 2009 11:23pm Report this comment

Why are we surprised? (if indeed we are)

This man employed Damien McBride, as we now know, to do his dirty work for him, whilst McBride was also running the Labour Dirty Tricks Campaign from his desk in the Downing Street Bunker.

I find it totally believable that Balls should be capable of LIES & SPIN to suit his own political agenda......namely, positioning himself to be the next leader of the Labour Party.

Although quite why anyone of sane mind would want to have that dubious position is quite beyond me.

Hopefully after the General Election, Labour will cease to exist as a party; so he's welcome to lead it's rump of MP's into the wilderness for good.

As we say in Scotland - "Hell mend them"

David Ossitt

April 21st, 2009 11:27pm Report this comment

It could not have happened to a more deserving chap.

Alan Douglas

April 21st, 2009 11:29pm Report this comment

If only. I can see THE SUN headline now :

BALLS SQUASHED

Alan Douglas

Conand

April 21st, 2009 11:46pm Report this comment

Moraymint said:

'Oh God, and then there was that ludicrous, farcical little episode with Brown on YouTube today. What the hell's happening? I think I'm going mad.'

I couldn't agree more.

JohnAnt

April 22nd, 2009 12:29am Report this comment

The cheering thing about the blogosphere is that we don't have to observe the government-imposed MSM news cycle. If we like a story we can play with it for weeks, or even resurrect it when the victim is looking elsewhere.

Mitch

April 22nd, 2009 5:01am Report this comment

Get his snout out of the trough.
Poor ed,just not clever enough.

Archie Wedderspoon

April 22nd, 2009 8:03am Report this comment

When I moved to Australia in 1976, I thought I was going to a country whose political culture was marginaly more corrupt than the UK's. How wrong I was - and my estimate of the crookedness of Australian politicians has not improved.

Forlornehope

April 22nd, 2009 8:15am Report this comment

Knocking Balls (is it a game or an executive toy?) is good tactics but lousy strategy. All those looking for a long period of Conservative government should be doing everything possible to ensure that Balls succeeds Brown.

cuffleyburgers

April 22nd, 2009 8:35am Report this comment

"Life is about to get worse for Ed Balls"

Regrettably with the withdrawal from circulation of mediaeval systems of chastisement involving spikes, flames and hot pieces of metal it is hard to think what might happen to him which remotely approaches what he deserves, odious piece of incompetent lying hubristic shit that he is

Susan Hill

April 22nd, 2009 8:37am Report this comment

If only Csmeron were not so damned NICE.

John Moss

April 22nd, 2009 9:01am Report this comment

Don't forget, Balls also appears to have broken the other cardinal rule and lied to the Toady Prog as well, when he claimed to hardly know Damian McBride, despite chairing meetings every Wednesday morning with him, Whelan, Watson etc.

Of course it was "soft Jim" Naughtie who did the interview. Had it been "hard John" Humphreys, he would be getting a terrible time of it next time he appeared. I can hear it now.

JH - "Now Minister, just before we start on the SATs fiasco, can you just clear up one thing for me, did you lie to me over "knowing" Damian McBride?"

Oh and of course followed up with a comment about how he and his wife pool their second home allowances in order to live in a very expenive house in London, near to their children's schools, where they spend most of their time, obviously, as both of them are ministers, while claiming the house they share in Castleford is their "main home" despite visiting it only occassionally.

Ballsbreaker

April 22nd, 2009 9:36am Report this comment

Forlorne - But then that is playing Labour's game. Governments should have the courage of their convictions without having to depend on the Opposition either being smearable, incompetent, or purely revolting like Balls.