Pure Balls
Fraser Nelson 5:19pm
According to the Sunday Times, poor old Shaun Woodward is getting the blame for inspiring Brown’s mendacious “Labour investment v Tory cuts” line. As if. This is the work of Ed Balls, and his trademark belief that the public can be easily fooled on such issues because their eyes glaze over when you mention statistics.
A quick chronology: when the 10 percent figure came out in my Daily Telegraph piece it was Ed Balls who seized on it (his wife did so earlier that day with the Standard) and used it in a letter to Michael Gove demanding where those 10 percent cuts would be made. He used my figure as if it were official Tory policy. Now, when you hear Balls deploy a statistical scam, it’s usually only a matter of days before Brown echoes it – which he did first on the Marr interview and then in PMQs.
On Ed Balls’ new leadership campaign website, currently posing as a personal page, he is quick to take credit for what he regards as the positive parts of Brown’s economic legacy. But it’s worth remembering that Balls bears more responsibility than almost any other person in Britain for the negative parts - the debt bubble, and the violence of the recession which was inevitably going to follow it. I have incurred the wrath of CoffeeHousers for praising Balls’ executive skills – but believe me, he ran a tight ship at HM Treasury. The civil service welcomed the clear instructions which Balls gave them: ie, conceal debt, gear up the economy, encourage a property boom and collect stamp duty and borrow your way out of every slowdown, pretend that inflation is the sole yardstick of stability.
Before Brown was handed Balls by the FT, he was struggling on the financial brief. It was Balls’ gift for financial chicanery which transformed the Brown operation – in Opposition and government. It is Balls’ attention to detail, and his understanding about the importance of spinning by numbers, that allowed Brown to run so many rings around the Tories. Damian McBride was a mere civil servant, before he was spotted by Balls from whom he learned his trade in aggressive briefing to the media. No wonder Balls feels that he should inherit the whole operation. Anyway, the Cabinet should not blame the hapless Woodward for the 10 percent lie. To paraphrase Michael Heseltine: it’s not Woodward’s. It’s Ball’s.
PS The Sunday Herald runs an interview with yours truly about all this today. Read it here
Previous
Max Kaye
July 5th, 2009 5:50pm Report this commentThe oily Shaun Woodward may be many thing, but 'poor' is not one of them.
jono
July 5th, 2009 5:55pm Report this commentHow did you take being branded "a combat ready nerd" by the Herald, Mr N?
Hawkeye
July 5th, 2009 6:03pm Report this commentWow! Just read the Sunday Herald piece. Well done Fraser. What a fantastic endorsement of your reporting. Keep it up
PS - Do you enjoy being "the media aggressor Team Brown fears most." ?
john miller
July 5th, 2009 6:04pm Report this commentShorn Woodward, ohh how they must have welcomed a naif like him trotting across the floor. Parade him like the fluffy fairground teddy and just wait for the day when you need a scapegoat.
How could he possibly believe that with this lot, if you're not in the magic circle, the tricks are on you?
Tankus
July 5th, 2009 6:12pm Report this commenthuh ...another egostatistal manic formally from the treasury , that sees it as his
god given right to inherit the premiership without the need of the trivial nuances of a democracy .....
I wonder ... decades from now , when Britain finally gets out of its third world status, and the red cross announce that we don't need any more famine relief ...
We shall find out that nulab political experiment was actually a slow economic warfare attack by a foreign country using long term sleeper agents cunningly placed to cause maximum destruction to the British way of life.
Blunt was just the trail run
Who needs an army to destroy a country these days ... You just need to spot the right loon at school age, then coach and guide over the years through the students union before unleashing them on the gullible electorate ..
job done
TGF UKIP
July 5th, 2009 6:27pm Report this commentHaving read the piece in the Herald and your piece in the NoW today and all your recent posts in the Coffee House, I really would like to congratulate you. You are playing an absolute blinder to the point where it can now said without fear of argument that you are the principal economic opposition to this rotten lying government.
How envious it must make the headbanging Tories on this website when they have to contrast an authoritative, credible, cogent and presentable personna on economic and Treasury matters like your self with what the Clique has chosen to represent their beloved Tory Party.
PS I particularly enjoyed your savaging of the Tories on the cuts issue in the NoW today. As the scales fall, perhaps there is hope for you yet, Fraser.
mitch
July 5th, 2009 6:37pm Report this commentThe man who is the definition of stupid and you lot followed him off a cliff.
You only have to listen to this fool and (more importantly) watch his body language and you can tell he lies and he knows he lies.
someone call him on it please before you wake up and find he is the leader of the opposition (never PM, too much history with brown)
adrian drummond
July 5th, 2009 7:00pm Report this commentSince when should anyone feel sorry for Shaun Woodward?
oldtimer
July 5th, 2009 7:12pm Report this commentNow that his endogenous growth theory ("no more boom or bust")has fallen flat on its face he has, of course, blamed it all on his exogenous recession theory ("it all started in America").
I expect it was Balls who dreamed up the pensions tax - he certainly was the person who leaked it to an unprepared pension fund industry through the pages of the FT back in 1997 - somehwere I still have the cutting..
Jock
July 5th, 2009 7:31pm Report this commentTo lie is almost honourable when compared to the careful and deliberate crafting of a totally misleading impression in such a manner as to enable the perpetrator to show that he did not lie.
On the other side of the same coin lies the ploy of isolation a few words of an opponent to undermine a case or critique the fundmanetal thrust of which is fair and accurate.
To call people who behave like this liars may be strictly speaking inaccurate. It is also unfair - to straightforward liars.
In this context, a re-reading of Kipling's Gehazi is well worthwhile. A couple of excerpts :
"The truthful, well-weighed answer
That tells the blacker lie --
The loud, uneasy virtue,
The anger feigned at will,
To overbear a witness
And make the Court keep still."
"To keep a matter hid,
And subtly lead the questions
Away from what he did."
Battle 2807
July 5th, 2009 8:01pm Report this commentI tried to find your NOTW column today, and was unable to. I got onto the NOTW website etc and there was nothing since 26th June. I assumed you must be on holiday.
I would have thought they would be bigging you up big time, but obviously not.
This is the only website that I can leave a comment. I have tried on Iain Dale, Guido etc etc. but am unable to.
Well done speccie.
Also unable to leave a comment on telegraph.
biggestaspidistra
July 5th, 2009 8:09pm Report this commentTGFUKIP:"PS I particularly enjoyed your savaging of the Tories on the cuts issue in the NoW today. As the scales fall, perhaps there is hope for you yet, Fraser."
There is more than hope for Fraser. He has found his Balls.
Jeremy
July 5th, 2009 8:10pm Report this commentThe sort of man who probably thinks that to lie is clever - and to lie and get away with it is cleverest. Being a Labour man, he probably thinks that all irrational and hate-filled prejudice is wrong. Unless, that is, it is an irrational and hate-filled prejudice against the Tories. In which case it is right. And any lie he tells or manipulation he makes which both fuels and furthers that prejudice is, likewise, right - perhaps even virtuous.
I certainly don't envy you having that on the other end of your phone, Fraser.
Short the UK
July 5th, 2009 8:12pm Report this commentI really do think the FT (F****** Terrible) have a lot to answer for in this economic debacle. The editoral board are a disgrace to hard working British businessmen.
I hope the elite wake up to what FT really means!!
John Moss
July 5th, 2009 9:12pm Report this comment£200+BN borrowed by Brown between 01 and 08, unremarked by the FT.
'nuf said.
IH
July 5th, 2009 9:15pm Report this commentI am living for the day when Brown & Balls (in particular) have to say the 'c' word out loud.
Prodicus
July 5th, 2009 9:17pm Report this commentNo links to Red Rag or Go4th on Ed's site, I see. Tsk. Silly me. He hardly knows those people, does he?
Nice article in the Herald, Mr N. 'Militant maths' made me chortle.
TrevorsDen
July 5th, 2009 10:15pm Report this commentOh give it up UKIP. The tories have taken good advantage of the forensic publication of the figures.
Has anybody heard a dicky bird from UKIPs leadership (does it have any?) - ? err no, they are too busy spending their EU expenses.
Brown was struggling with the financial brief? He still does. And his choice of Balls as a useful wonk shows just how little he understands anything.
Moraymiint
July 5th, 2009 10:23pm Report this commentAh Fraser! Just read in the Herald piece that you're the son of an RAF officer (and from Glasgow's east end, to boot). Splendid! As an ex-RAF Regiment officer myself, I can now relate more strongly than ever to your superb dissections of this travesty of a Government.
Best wishes, and keep up the good work. Right now, Britain needs "combat-ready nerds" like you! Stay calm. Keep going.
Fergus Pickering
July 6th, 2009 4:23am Report this commentBut TGF, if Fraser isn't a Tory I'll eat my Tory hat. What's more he's a SCOTCH TORY (the worst kind!). You just mean he's not a ploiician, not the same thing at all.
drakes drum
July 6th, 2009 8:41am Report this commentTrevors Den. I have given up hoping that you will step on your rose tinted spectacles.
Your constant praising of the tories and especially their ''leader'' who is most certainly not one! is bad enough. BUT when UkipTGP makes a very valid point, in praise of Mr Nelson, you knock him back with some quite childish comments.
I am afraid that David Cameron lost my, and I suspect many people's support, when he allowed those members of the shadow cabinet, who had their arms in the expense trough, to remain in the shadow cabinet!
That his shadow chancellor is now being investigated, quite rightly in my view, shows that Cameron's hope that we will forget all about expenses has been blown out of the water.
That Cameron is telling us all porkies about the EU will also mitigate against him.
Whilst things will not improve for Gordon Brown. I forecast a very torrid time for Cameron culminating in him snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
Flemingcrag
July 6th, 2009 9:33am Report this commentForgive my ignorance but, how can anyone be praised for running a tight ship when every command drove it right into the path of a "titanic" sized iceberg?
To follow your logic, Ed (so what) Balls is to be praised for his efficient and incisive commands that led to the following;
Private pension destruction/Selling gold at lowest market price/Tripartite financial regulation/Tax credits/The £10K corporation tax threshold/Abolition of 10p tax band/Failure to spot housing bubble/ Rise in household debt/Collapse of household savings and Introduction of "bonus culture" and targets into every facet of public service.
In the words of a senior army officer reviewing the performance of a junior; This man sets himself ridiculously low standards and continually fails to meet them.
Jock
July 6th, 2009 10:07am Report this commentFergus P
Whisky is Scotch. Fraser Nelson is Scottish.
Simon The Bluesman
July 6th, 2009 10:19am Report this commentI have just followed the link to Mr Balls'webpage where it says that he is married to Yvette Cooper, the MP for Pontefract and Castleford, they have three children and live in Castleford. Can someone please tell me what school his children attend in Castleford?
Barman at The Red Lion, Whitehall
July 6th, 2009 10:51am Report this commentAll that aside, though - it's nice to see Shaun (of the Dead) Woodward getting shafted by his new best friends in 'Brown's Circle'. Now, all we need is for something similar to happen to that other oily turncoat Quentin Davies and justice really will be served...
TGF UKIP
July 6th, 2009 11:45am Report this commentFergus, of course Fraser is a Tory and probably the only half-decent polemicist they've got.
However, he does have his occasional but well justified bouts of scepticism about the The Clique and The Heir's "Leadership." Scepticism in which I feel duty bound to encourage him.
Tyler D
July 6th, 2009 3:32pm Report this comment"More Dirt from Brown's Balls."
Pithy political statement or smutty neologism?
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