Following a dividing line to oblivion

Chris

I wish Brown was a roi fainéant. Roi fait too foutant much, if you ask me.

Chris lancashire

If it is a race for the succession, please, please let Balls win.

Wily Trout

A pox on the lot of them.

Raffles

What is even more interesting is the wrath the article prompted on the Comments section. An almost unanimous trashing by the rank and file Guardianista! Marvellous to behold.

Ken

What a choice eh?

Dire vs Dreadful, Balls vs Banana.

Liebour's deserved death just can't come soon enough.

Vulture

Have just heard Balls go ball to ball with Gove on World at One. Gove scored an impressive and clear victory on the very points you make, Matthew. If this is Balls throwing his cap in the ring, he'd better find another one to throw.

Diswiss

Balls hasn't a chance in hell.
Along with his head girl wife
Cooper, they are two of the most
irritating politicians around.

Denis Cooper

But if "The race for the succession is already on", it's primarily a race for who will succeed Brown as Labour party leader, not necessarily for who will succeed Brown as Prime Minister.

Comrade Mandelson, sharing his private thoughts with the proletariat, warns that irreconcilable elements may make yet another attempt against our beloved Leader in the autumn; how great will be the joy of the people when that wicked attempt ends in failure, as all such attempts are doomed to end in failure!

Of course it will fail; as we saw on Wednesday, Brown's Commons majority is solid; and while that remains the case he can carry on as Prime Minister until the spring of next year, much to the relief of Merkel, Sarkozy and other EU leaders:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6e3d9004 -57b0-11de-8c47-00144feabdc0.html?ftcamp=rss

"British voters cannot wait to see the back of Gordon Brown but European leaders are hoping the prime minister can hold on to power long enough for the Lisbon treaty to be fully ratified.

"It is a race between the second Irish referendum and the death throes of Gordon Brown's government," said Alain Lamassoure, an MEP from the centre-right UMP party and a former adviser on European Union issues to Mr Sarkozy.

If Mr Brown's Labour government is replaced by David Cameron's opposition Conservatives, British voters will in all likelihood vote down the treaty and throw the EU into chaos."

That's what it's really all about; what would happen once the Lisbon Treaty had come into force - Brown leads Labour to fourth general election victory, Brown leads Labour to massive defeat and is replaced, Brown is replaced before the election and successor leads Labour to victory, or successor leads Labour to defeat - all that is of comparatively little significance.

The real race, the one that matters on the wider stage, is the one explained by Alain Lamassoure in the FT article.

oldtimer

Balls was at it again on BBC World at One, arguing with Gove. The method today was to make a specific, narrowly defined, announcement and challenge Gove to say if he would support it or cut it. I believe the Cooper announcement on legislation to eliminate child poverty was another attempt to draw a specific dividing line. In short to go for specific commitments vs the generality of overall spending. Perhaps they are seeking Tory death by a thousand cuts rather than by a quick decapitation.

It did not convince me as a line of argument - but then nothing Balls says ever does. Whether it will work as an attempt to change the terms of the debate only time will tell. Somehow I think that time has already passed.

Kevyn Bodman

1)It is good to emphasise dividing lines. All parties should do it.

2)The adjective 'evil' does not collocate with the noun phrase 'dismantlers of the state', does it?
'Virtuous' plays much better;come on Cameron, sell it as a virtue.

tenpin

Cameron et al. have to basically say yes there will be cuts due to the mountain of debt we are in. As oldtimer points out above, Balls seems to be pushing specifics, in this instance I would advise the Tories to say that once they get in they are going to have to look at everything across the board and survey the landscape (smoking ruins) before assessing what to cut. Alternatively, they could flip the question and ask Balls what he'll be cutting from the education budget. As for the other point in this article, if Matthew sees the successor to Brown's throne as either Milliband or Balls - then God help the Labour party.

chris

If Balls is supposed to be schools secretary, then why doesn't get on with his job and pay attention to what Ralph Tabberer, the former director-general of schools until he let last year, who says (in today's Telegraph) that 'the comprehensive system is not working and Britain risked being overtaken by developing countries.'
Perhaps it is beacause he (Balls) was educated at one of the top private schools in the country and he never did, and never will, understand how the non-private sector in education works (or doesn't). He's just read a lot of theories about education and tried to connect them with his loony politics.

Verity

You're all fiddling while Rome burns. These tiny details matter not and David Cameron and his clique are part of the problem. Read Philip Johnson's superb piece in today's Telegraph.
http://tinyurl.com/n4hcpy

Paul

So this time round, the first plank of Brown's approach to winning the election has rotted away. No one thinks that he is competent with the economy. He can't claim the end of the boom and bust.

Notice how it's Balls and not Darling who is spearheading this attack?

And, er... not sure what Cameron has to do with the catastrophe that inevitably comes after 12 years of implementing wrong-headed ideology.

Chris

Such a pity Verity's not PM, isn't it? The fountains in Trafalgar Square would flow with lemonade, and politics would be the art of waving one's wand, not of the possible.

dorothy wilson

In today's World at One Balls sounded like a bully on speed.

C Powell

Matthew Parris's article in Saturday's Times was v.good on this, not just about being honest about the cuts which will be needed, whoever's in power, but about the need to argue for a smaller state as a good thing in itself and, therefore, the need for the state to pull out of some things altogether rather than having 10% cuts across the board which almost inevitably result in stupid cuts which do affect people rather than a more strategic review of whether the the state "service" is necessary at all. Well worth a read.

Simon Richards

Verity - try as hard as I can, I can't turn Philip Johnson's (excellent) piece into a stick to beat Cameron with.

I agree that the false argument over who will manage the inevitable cuts is a distraction, but if I was going to conflate it with anything, it would be over the role of the EU. Surely it is the arm's length management by so many unelected and mostly invisible bureacrats that threatens us most.

David Ossitt

Chris your sarcasm; with regard to Verity is rude and crass and it also shows that you do not know the lady.

The fountains would flow with something far more interesting and classy than lemonade.

Simon Stephenson

Chris 3.44pm

How would you have viewed living in 1930s Germany, Chris? Would you have taken the line:-

"Well, I may think there's something going wrong here, but this is what's come out through the system, and what right do I have to abstain from giving it my fullest support. After all, if there's one way to make something fail, it's with people being less than wholehearted in their support for it. So let's all pull together in a united way and make these policies as effective as possible. Anyone who refuses to do this is failing the society in which they live."

Or do you think that a person should be entitled to withold support if his conscience so dictates, and that without such an exemption from all-embracing obedience, being human is a pointless waste of time?

mitch

I suffered balls rantings at one today jeeeez what an idiot, it was like listening to a two year old trying to stay up a bit later,Gove tore him to bits, most amusing.
If ball makes leader labour will fit in a phone booth next election.

chris

It wasn't me, Verity, it was the other Chris

JONNY

Chris your sarcasm; with regard to Verity is rude and crass and it also shows that you do not know the lady.

Oh well, David Ossitt, that counts me out too.

Edward

"Fiddling while Rome burns".
I can only agree, Verity.

The "tiny details which matter not" are but a mere distraction from the real agenda to which you refer in a previous thread.

I'm sure you're aware that both Osborne AND Balls could share an alternative agenda closer to their hearts than their party political posturing might otherwise suggest.

If there wasn't such an agenda, why has there been no EU Referendum in the UK as was promised ?

david owen

It may be nonscence but it might play with the public. The legend of Tory cuts will strike a chord with many and most people don't understand the country's financial position. Cameron has to some extent neutralised this but ironically by bringing the issue back the fiscal crisis may play in to Labour's hands.

hadrian

Yvette Cooper and her 'eliminating child poverty'..just who do these deluded politicians think they're kidding with their grandiose utopian visions?
Granted that in the main what we today term 'child poverty' would be lookec upon by our forebears as sheer luxury, nevertheless there are vast swathes of our child population that are materially neglected and others spiritually, morally and emotionally deprived and I defy even the most 'potent' government to overcome all these injustices.

As for Broon's 'No more Boom or Bust'- well, we all know where that empty slogan went; similarly the 'British jobs for British workers'. This PM's soundbites ineluctably return to bite him himself, so it'll be a pleasure seeing his latest 'Labour Invest- Tory Cut' rebound on the blighter.

Chris

@Jonny. Rude: good, that was the intention. Crass: possibly, but do I care? Not a lot. Don't know her: thank God.

Verity and Gordon Brown both remind me so much of Salvador de Madariaga's (I think) definition of a fanatic: 'one who redoubles his effort every time he misses his aim.' And of Wile E. Coyote. Beep beep!

Edward

... to oblivion ?
Most of the comments here merit one simple and well-meant comment.
Bon voyage.

paul g

its all balls! every one knows that spending will have to be reduced in real terms.
Labour will scrap body armour for the troops before giving up their diversity stormtroopers that they have inflicted upon local govt.