Balls to the rescue?

Oscar Miller

So it's official then - Balls is positioning himself to be next leader of the Labour party.

Tom

One wonders what the new PR and ad-men are making of all this. How long before they scuttle back to WPP and Brunswick....?

Chuck Unsworth

The malcontents having their say is merely a manifestation of the malcontents' realisation that they are likely to lose their seats. For them it's simply a question of self-preservation.

Balls' intervention should be viewed rather more carefully, but his timing and method is interesting. With only days to go before the elections, what is his point? Dodes he seriously believe that a ten day push will change the views of the electorate who are basing their votes on roughly ten years of NuLab 'governance'?

I wonder when we're going to hear from Miliband?

David

He also says that Labour MPs shoudl stop puttnig their personal careers before that of the Labour Party and the country.

Does this mean he's going to ask Brown to resign?

Richard

Well remember a meeting a few weeks before the 1997 election when Stephen Dorrell, then a Cabinet Minister, said "the Conservatives were never stronger than when singing from the same hymn sheet". I thought at the time that this displayed just how detached senior politicians can become.

There is every indication the Labour ministers are now displaying the same signs of detachment that so eroded the Major government.

Mike

Ball's interview is a master class in why he should be allowed nowhere near power. A quick fisk:
"Labour must not fall for false prophets, and gave warning that Labour would be “intolerant” of anyone who put personal interests and disappointments before the party’s and the country’s."
...I will not have anyone else positioning themselves a heir other than me and I will personally break the legs of anyone of steps out of line.
(note use of country's interest - NuLab again conflates what it in the country's interest and NuLabs interest. They are different things)
"When times are tough, having ideas and policies for the future really matters.”"
...and those policies are?
"The comments were particularly aimed at the Labour figures who, Mr Balls believes, have privately briefed against Mr Brown"
....Er pot, kettle. The irony of Ed Balls complaining of people privately briefing the media! The man has no shame!
Note the interviewer The Times' political editor Philip Webster is (allegedly, according the Private Eye) a close friend of Ed Balls and football n' golfing chum.

Ted

Its noticeable from both Gordon Brown and Ed Balls that they continually refer back to the early days of Government - the decisions made in 1997 to continue with the Conservative spending plans and give BoE independence.

Brown/Balls don't seem to have any specific things since then to trumpet.

Oscar Miller

Well fisked Mike. Coming from the back-stabber in chief this is all a bit rich. As for the sin of putting career before party and country - does that mean Ed is going to resign? Balls is, if anything, more dangerous than Brown.

kinglear

Whenever I see the word "Balls" I think of Jonners classic - "Ooh that must have hurt, right in the groin. Oh yes he's OK, he's standing up - one ball left" collapse of entire commentary team

James Price

Brown may initially have been tough on public spending, but look at the deficit now! As for the Euro. If we'd joined at a lower rate in 1998 we would not have had ten years of an vervalued currency. Ten years at say 1,35 to the pound would have been good. As it is we end up with devaulaution and high interest rates. All this 'the economy's safe with us' was a bleedin' smokescreen. They taxed, borrowed and spent.

RW

There is something almost incestuous about the Times's political editor interviewing the Secretary of State and presenting the result with a straight face. And with no acknowledgement that Philip Webster, a New Labour speak-your-weight machine IMO, is a political ally and close friend of Ed Balls. They even support the same football club and go to matches together. These behind-the-scenes alliances should be made public so that readers can make their own decisions about the veracity and impartiality, or otherwise, of political commentators.

The Laughing Cavalier

Balls was Brown's brain during his ten years as Chancellor and shares much of the responsibility for the mess we are in. Consequently, he has no choice but to intervene to defend his own record.

Perry

Arrogant piffle . . . 'tough decisions' my a**e! It's us who have to take tough decisions.

And, as Molesworth might say . . . 'He is uterly wet and a weed' followed by something about 'tuoughing him up' . . . or is that too un-PC nowadays?

Ann

Richard, Yes, but 'New' 'Labour' were displaying the same arrogance and disconnection from reality by 1998 that it took the Conservatives a full 18 years to degenerate into. Some sort of record, I believe.