Balls' pitch for the shadow chancellorship

The Laughing Cavalier

For years this loon posed as Brown's brain, all the while contributing greatly to the wrecking of the economy. Surely no Opposition leader in his right mind would make this incompetent blowhard Shadow Chancellor

Rhoda Klapp

When are they going to notice that the Attlee government was a disaster?

Sally Chatterjee

One man's certainty is another's delusion.

And what if growth doesn't come back? Thanks to the gigantic bubble inflated by Balls, Britain could be hampered by gradual asset price deflation and "zombie" banks: years of stagnation and sub-trend growth.

If Brown has a reputation as a disastrous Chancellor, Balls is no different: failed policies, nasty manners, the inability to admit he was wrong.

Verityred

Good article. Always a joy to see the liar and creep Balls dribble and splutter his Master Browns piffle, in the same style as his Master...

Funny thing is he's not liked much by his own party, or anyone else.

Ed P

Yvette for Shadow Chancellor!
(She controls the balls in their house and Ed is washed up, a has-been, forever associated with the Brown mess.)

justathought

Looking on the positive side, even if you don't agree with his policies, he does lay out a clear opposition to argue against.

I would be wary of writing off the possibility of a double-dip, not because he says so but because its a real possibility. People are reducing their borrowing on both loans and mortgages so its unclear where the driver for growth is coming from.

My concern having just read the piece here about the £13 billion cost of the civil service, is that it might be hard for the coalition to deliver the cuts necessary to reduce the deficit in the near term.If taxes don't increase, costs are not reduced and the consumer is too cautious to spend then growth will be anemic.It is possible that once negotiations begin in earnest it may not be possible to achieve the cuts in public spending, which is why I prefer target tax rises on bankers bonuses and bank profits. I simply don't subscribe to the view that the middle class taxpayer can pay any more in taxes have had their personal wealth halved in this recession.

As for Ed Balls he doesn't have the charm that David Milliband has but I guess that won't stop the Labour votes ticking his box as leader.

Prodicus

Brownite economics? No such thing.

Brown is an historian of Scottish Socialism, not an economist. As economists go, he was an egotistical, over-promoted, party machine man schooled in economics by the even more electorally unappetising Ed, and by those who had taught him.

Whatever Brown said on the subject of economics was all Balls, with which they afflicted the nation through years of teamwork in amoral political thuggery born of their mutual devotion and shared, Marxoid thirst for control.

Talking of wrecking this country's economy on just about every front, Balls is far more guilty than Brown. Balls knew exactly what he was doing. Brown only thought he did.

Balls is doggedly repeating the economic Balls which got him/Brown/Labour/the country into trouble in the first place and finally lost Labour the election. Wouldn't you think...? But, no, you wouldn't.

Well, you go for it, Ed. The whole Tory party is rooting for you. 'Balls, the Labour Party Leader' just sounds... appropriate, somehow.

Will J

Sadly we are really quite likely to go into a double dip, whatever the government does (see the link below to a post by Andrew Lilico). When you print that much money in order to keep things moving, the cost of the monetary expansion is an economic contraction before too long. How could it be otherwise? When you have simulated growth by expanding the money supply at a greater rate than the real growth of the economy, some contraction is inevitable, simply as an adjustment to the underlying reality.

The challenge for the government will be explaining this when it happens, so that it doesn't allow Balls and Labour to gain the upper hand.

http://conservativehome.blogs.com/centreright/2010/08/five-politically-relevant-things-about-where-we-are-on-the-economy.html

denis cooper

Peter, what has happened to David Blackburn's article about the funeral at Regent's Park mosque?

PayDirt

So his plan is to fund growth by increasing rather than decreasing Public Sector costs. Then interest on Govt debt can be paid by printing money, did he say that? Someone needs to remind him of what happened in the Weimar Republic, inflation which helped the Nazis and gave us a world war. Balls would go down that path. What a moron.

denis cooper

"He explains: Attlee didn't make his "first priority ... to reduce the debts built up during second world war," and he left us with the welfare state – so why should we cut spending now?"

Attlee made it his first priority to increase the debts by borrowing from the US, with results which some claim to have been very damaging both for the country and for his party.

From 2005 - I believe the US debt has finally been paid off since then:

http://uktv.co.uk/yesterday/item/aid/530295

"Desperate measures

Only a month into office, Clement Attlee made a dreadful political mistake that it could be argued set the balance for world affairs and geopolitics to this day. In 1945, the War was over, but the conflict had cost Britain about one-quarter of its national wealth. In an attempt to reverse this situation Attlee trusted economist John Maynard Keynes to pull off a deal on generous terms with the Americans. Britain's hopes of clinching the desired deal - an interest-free loan of $5 billion - quickly evaporated, and we received $3.75 billion at 2 percent annual interest. These negotiations culminated in the signing of the Anglo-American Loan Agreement, under which Britain had to accept very harsh terms. Putting it simply, every man woman and child in this country still owes £4.50 to the Americans under this deal!

Attlee's legacy

The signing of the Anglo-American Loan Agreement pretty much sealed the doom for Attlee's Labour Government and the Tories quickly got back in power, the country under Churchill once again, although Attlee continued to lead the Labour Party until resigning in 1955 ... "

alexsandr

Balls V Osbourne in the commons.

Think george may just win that one?

Chris lancashire

Balls hasn't got a chance of either leader or shadow chancellor. Credibility - zero, enemies within the Labour Party - hordes. Bully boy tactics - completely out of tune with the new political atmosphere. Goodbye.

TrevorsDen

'when Balls says that "George Osborne ... is planning to go £40 billion further and faster this year' he is just plain lying.

I heard a labour apologist on the radio last month talk about how we are OK because labour 'paid down' debt. when challenged he mumbled about percentages. But he was plain lying, debt unquestionably went up.

Balls lies because he believes his audience to be ignorant. Its a savage indictment of the man that he hold his electorate in such low esteem, but maybe he is telling them what they want to believe. And if Balls does get the Shadow Chancellorship it just shows that labour are clueless about economics. A hostage to fortune - but I cannot believe that either Miliband would make Balls their Chancellor.

Richard of York

24 hrs after Nahdir (the tory donor and sleaze king)returns and still nothing from the speccie instead another attack on Balls.
Sums up the quality of the journo's I think.
Perhaps Fraser is working on it as we speak...but don't hold your breath.

Mary Nash

Ed Balls is a genuis. He was right about handing interest rates decisions to the Bank of England, the minimum wage, not joining the single currency etc. While economic adviser our country went through prosperous years with lower debts than Japan, USA, Germany, France until the global recession 2 years ago. Once again the measures taken by the previous govt (opposed by George Osborne but supported by Vince Cable) were proven to be correct measures keeping inflation, interest rates, unemployment low at the same time supporting growth. Up to now all the recent economic indicators show strong growth, low unemployment, low interest rates prove the previous govt right. The Coalition Govt should not risk slowing growth leading to a double recession. Savage avoidable cuts is cruel and also waste of money. Crime rate has fallen by 45%, our NHS is the second overall ranking in the 2010 Ranking of Countries Healthcare (on qaulity care,access, efficiency, equity, long healthy productive lives), more schools were built under the Building Schools for the future policy and more young people have university education. Even Tories should be worried that the Coalition Govt is ripping our cherished institutions. The govt is in danger of knowing the costs of everthing but the value of nothing.

Verityred

Nice try little Dickie Dork but another limp failure for you.

Only a bargain basement Labour cyber Goebells would actually try to deflect attention from the odious Balls.

And up you pop on your favourite site. Bless. How's your political handler? Still giving you a Ginger biscuit every post? Good doggy.

TrevorsDen

RoY - you must try harder. The Speccy have mnot mentioned the labour MPs in the old bailey dock for ages.

And you cannot find a word to support Balls' preposterous notions.

Chuck Unsworth

As usual RoY seeks to divert attention. This time to Nadir and attacking Spectator journalists for their choice of articles. Is Nadir anything at all to do with the topic? No.

If you don't like the choice of topic and article Richard - just piss off. It's not too difficult, even for someone as intellectually challenged as yourself. Help for the demented is just a few clicks away. You could even set up your own blog - where you could talk to yourself all day.

Blofeld's Cat

Richard of York - Nadir (note spelling) has returned to face justice, which I guess he feels is more likely in the current political climate. Balls' (note correct use of apostrophe, cf journo's) obfuscatory and mendacious comments are merely his attempts to ensure that he avoids the justice that he is undoubtedly due for his considerable part in buggering our economic future.

normanc

The problem with this prediction is that it's specious reasonining. 'If we do get a double dip then it will be because we didn't print, borrow and spend even more, like I said.' However, the double dip may have came anyway and it may have been even worse with larger deficits with even more problems stored up for the future.

Conversely it may have been staved off if we had cut spending and taxes even more than planned. Who is to say?

You can only go on your record, and Labours record is absolutely shocking. There's no getting around that.

Richard of York

poor old chuckie.
who cares how you spell his name....he is a sleaze ball and only came back when he heard the prosecutions case file had gone missing and the digital back-up is corrupted...wonder how that happened?

Pete

Balls should be asked this question:

'What level of public debt do you think the markets would tolerate?'

He must have a figure in mind and it would be interesting to know the answer.

ben

public debt had nothing to do with the recession

JohnPage

Under anodyne questioning on WATO from stand-in Brian Hanrahan, Balls has just disqualified himself as a credible shadow chancellor. He ducked questions about when deficit reduction should start and how long the phasing of it should be, by saying that even discussion of that should wait for two years to see how the economy performed.

Chris lancashire

ben: you're probably right. It was the realisation of millions of orinary people that they'd overborrowed, maxed out the credit card, taken on too big a mortgage on a questionably valued property that brought it about. Followed then by the realisation of those same millions that their government had gone and done exactly the same thing. Then they(the millions) realised they'd have to pay more tax to square that one up at the same time that they were dealing with their own debt.

So you're right, it wasn't public sector debt that caused the recession it was actually the man in the street.

Chris Bates

I am amazed at Ed Balls's callous disregard to historical facts.

The Attlee Government was concerned about the budget deficit that it inherited as a result of the Second World War. The second half of the Attlee Government under Cripps saw considerable austerity as the Government attempted to bring the post-war deficit under control. To suggest that the Attlee Government had little concern for the post-war deficit as Balls asserts is a total fabrication as those who lived through the post war years of austerity can witness to.

MikeWood

Balls does a great disservice to Attlee's economic record.

Attlee's government did make reducing the deficit a priority. It turned public sector net borrowing of £623million in 1946 into net repayment of £599million four years later.

Balls on the other hand thinks that it is too optimistic to reduce the amount of additional borrowing by half within four years.

Balls clearly lacks the economic judgment needed to either be prime minister or (shadow) chancellor.

David Vinter

So Balls is keen to keep on spending, he uses Attlee as an example. But what about the free market level of the pound? Labour spending policies have almost always been accompanied by devaluation--- Cripps, Wilson,el al. Every time this happens the poor suffer the most through higher food and fuel prices. Balls really is!

Tarka the Rotter

Aw cummon, look at the photograph... the man's a thug, plain and simple

FaustiesBlog Libertarian

Balls has repeatedly said that the deficit cannot be cut until there is growth. Now he is complaining about "growth deniers" but also attacking the cuts.

Seems like a u-turn to me.

Balls relies on the public's short attention span and non-mastery of the issues - and he's a master at spin, like so many of his unscrupulous comrades.

While Balls's "swagger" cannot be matched by his fellow leadership contenders, he has to be one of the most loathed politicians in this fair isle.

Let's hope they nominate him as Shadow Chancellor - they will be digging their own graves.

revolution

Balls like Brown is phsycologically flawed and would be a blessing for the conservatives?

Sevo Slade

Mary Nash: the Nobel Prize committee here in Oslo thanks you for your nomination of Robert Mugabe for the 2010 Nobel Prize in Economics.

William Boyd

Good piece and preceptive about the way Ed balls has nailed his coulours to the imminent prospect of a double-dip recession.

What will be hard for the Conservatives to explain is the scenario where the US economy continues to recover but ours doesn't.

That's also quite likely to happen.