Balls turns on the man he called Labour’s ‘greatest ever leader’

Verityred

Balls just keeps slithering deeper and deeper into his own mire. Brown's pet has no shame and no scruples.

HiFli

I'm not sure anyone really cares what Ed Balls says.

James

Do the Coalition really need to hit back at Ball's "growth denier" jibe? It's a pretty rubbish phrase and doesn't roll off the tongue. It hasn't caught on, largely because I don't think it resonates with the general public.

Maybe better to just ignore it - or else draw attention to something that seems to be getting very little attention.

Baron

is anyone but the BBC still listening to this obnoxious character? He’s toast, finished, parrot like.

here’s a brilliant take on Blair’s interpretation of the years in power by Jeff Randall. Superb, priceless, and reads well, too. It should be a must-read for the two Jags Lord who keeps yapping about how proud he's about Labour's achievements.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/jeffrandall/7978588/Tony-Blair-has-rewritten-history-without-modesty-or-shame.html

Sevo

So hang on a minute Ed: If I am personally bankrupt, in negative equity, and owing a cool million or so pounds to the bank, am I a "growth denier" because I feel that now might not be a good time to take out a second mortgage on my home?

Victor Southern

Balls was always Brown's boy, never Blair's. No story here. It is his nature.

George Laird

Dear All

Some people will say anything especially in politics to get ahead.

Balls isn’t any different but who is this directed too?

As his campaign for leader has hit the buffers is he appealing to the Ed Miliband camp?

Or the David Miliband camp?

There is always an objective.

As for describing Blair as Labour’s greatest leader, did he take any soundings in Iraq and Afghanistan?

I am sure that these people could produce some interesting views of that claim.

Poor Ed Balls has been out in the sun too long, it’s the heat you know, it does things to the mind.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

Vulture

My cat would be ashamed if it sicked up Ed Balls.

Surely the nastiest man to besmirch British politics since...since...Peter Mandelson.

Stepney

Balls is beyond shameless. Remember his classic "I'm really not aware of Mr MacBride or his role" line on the Today programme? And then there's this from today's DT:

"Mr Balls placed some of the blame on Ed Miliband, who was in charge of writing the party’s election manifesto, for the policies that came out of the No 10 “bunker” in the dying days of the Labour administration

“I was not in the bunker,” he said. “I was Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families. To be honest, of the candidates, the person who was probably more in the bunker was the person writing the manifesto.”

Odious, lying, naive, a*se.

Robert Eve

Does anyone give a monkeys what Balls says?

Pete

Hope David Miliband makes him Shadow Chancellor.

It will be Blair vs Brown all over again.

Richard of York

@Sevo
Hang on isnt that what this coalition are telling the unemployed?
If you are out of work mortgage the house and start up your own business in the midst of a stagnant economy.

The Oncoming Storm

For those who think the coalition doesn't have to respond to the "growth denier" jibe, it was the Tories' failure to kill off Balls' claims that they'd cut public services while cutting inheritance tax for the rich last autumn that was the start of Labour's comeback.

Peter From Maidstone

I was made redundant last year, started my own business, which has been successful, and am now starting a second with another entrepreneur. There is plenty of work out there.

Roger Davies

Well done Peter you are an example to the welfare scroungers that Dickie from York no doubt counts as his mates. These people cannot see the immorality of borrowing today to subsidise their life-style then expecting our children to pay.

Woody

Sorry Mr Balls but you were not only photographed in the No 10 bunker with Gordon Brown on his last day, you're also in his 'wedding photos'.

Richard of York

Well Done Peter and I hope things go on being good for you but the point I made was about the advice given to people about taking on more debt to get out of a fiscal problem......care to answer on that?

Alan Campbell

Balls makes a good point. As pointed out in today's FT by Martin Wolf:

On growth, Mr Balls states that “I would like [the chancellor] to point to the precedent from British economic history which says that, with slowing growth in our main trading partners and companies de-leveraging, it is possible for public sector retrenchment to stimulate private sector growth and job creation.”

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/119c59ac-b6c3-11df-b3dd-00144feabdc0.html

Paddy

Balls is like a double glazing salesman.

He has his foot in the door and you can't get rid of him.

Trickie Dickie: We are in a stagnant economy because of 13 years of labour - and don't give me the bull-shit about it being global.

No more boom and bust Brown said.

We are better placed than any other country.

Labour spent like there was no tomorrow and now we have to suffer for years.

Gawain

Keep paying out the rope and he will hang himself (and hopefully the Labour Party as well).

David Ossitt

Richard of York

“but the point I made was about the advice given to people about taking on more debt to get out of a fiscal problem......care to answer on that?”

Richard please, do not over react but is that not the policy a labour government under Ed Balls would be following?

Or does government borrowing not count?

David Ossitt

Richard of York

“but the point I made was about the advice given to people about taking on more debt to get out of a fiscal problem......care to answer on that?”

Richard please, do not over react but is that not the policy a labour government under Ed Balls would be following?

Or does government borrowing not count?

Naomi Muse

Give him no heed. He will say whatever will give him the attention he craves.

Richard of York

Paddy I have long believed that you just talk and never read anything.
The economy grew for 11 years out of 13 under Labour. the two years of negative growth was due to the world wide financial melt down. The latest figures show that the economy was growing again under Labour's last year, right up to the election. The Deficit was lower by 22bn than forecast and unemployment 600k lower then previous Tory slump and going down.
Now lets see where those facts fit against the next set of figures for the Tory govt.

Wossit
The point was the advice to unemployed was to borrow more to invest in a chance of a future Tory advise that counters their fiscal advice. Don't blame me if it's not what you want to hear but its the Tory advice.

Liz Brown

Balls? who gives a damn? Mr Laird -it should be directed AT not directed to - and you at university an' all..........

Dorothy Wilson

"he coalition needs to start hitting back at the ‘growth denier’ charge that Balls keeps hurling at them. They need to emphasise their corporation tax cut and how reducing the deficit will keep interest rates lower for longer."

They also need to emphasise that the deficit of around £150bn is not a one-off figure but an annual one. Thus, it accumulates and adds to the debt.

Simon Stephenson

Alan Campbell : 3.13pm

What you fail to mention is that both Mr Balls and Mr Wolf start their argument from the position that there is a policy that will stimulate private sector growth and job creation in the short-term, but that will not have a more damaging counter-effect in the medium- to long-term. It's very easy, as politicians and the popular press have demonstrated all too well, to single out a desirable consequence from a particular course of action, but to completely downplay, or even ignore, the other,less desirable, probable consequences.

I think Wolf genuinely believes that short-term stimulus is the best way to assist the private-sector's future, but I'm certain that Balls doesn't.

Balls and Labour in general are doing nothing constructive by making mischief in this way. They're not interested in the health of the private sector per se. Very much the opposite, in fact. It should be crystal-clear that personal freedom and individual autonomy are not seen as a positives in their eyes, and so the adoption of a short-term palliative that leads to the total collapse of the non-state economy is, for them, a goal scored, not a goal conceded. To Labour's Monnet-men, whatever's done must be structured so as to lead to a greater dependency of individual on the state, and anything that acts contrarily to this must be opposed, no matter how spurious must be the reasons given for doing so.

Never take at face value what a Labour politician says about anything.

Dan

Does anybody take Balls seriously?

Verityred

Little Dickie, what a pitiful jumble of tripe. But if it helps you with your thin skin and desperate need for attention issues, hell, it can't do anyone much harm.

Dimoto

Since when did leftish commentator and Euro "good ole boy" Martin Wolf, become some sort of arbiter ?
He has decades of form, and at 64, is a great argument for early retirement.

Bexleyite

Keeping interest rates 'lower for longer' simply penalises savers and pensioners who are already losing out because of the mismatch between RPI and CPI. Borrowers are losing out because the money the banks are getting through QE is going nowhere except on to banks' balance sheets.

The bankers win (again).

Simon Stephenson

Dan : 5.06pm

"Does anybody take Balls seriously?"

Regrettably, about 5 million, I should think. Not because they have seriously dissected and examined what he has to say, but because he is a representative of the Labour Party, which is the "only Party that looks after people like us". Therefore, by default, everything he suggests as policy must be good for Labour voters, and if he says it's also good for the people generally, then it must be so - because Balls is an honourable man - so are they all, all honourable men.

This unthinking support allows people like Balls to promote the idea that what they have to say is so clearly "right" that anyone who suggests something different must have an ulterior motive for doing so. Which of course is diametrically opposite to what is actually the case, where it is Balls and his fellow travellers who have an ulterior motive behind every recommendation that they make.

Paddy

Trickie Dickie: Whilst we are on the subject of Balls.

This just about sums up what you talk.

Victor Southern

Little Dicky

Sorry that you are still here and did not get your work permit for Florida. However, this is not the time for Disneyland economics.

There is be a world of difference between someone who has positive equity borrowing against their house to start a business and Labour, who borrowed repeatedly against the same negative equity.

Not every country in the world suffered economic collapse - Australia, China, Brazil, New Zealand, Taiwan, South Korea and Canada are amongst those who were only affected by the backwash.

Trying to deny that Brown and Labour had any responsibility for the shambles is farting against the wind.

By now, everyone except you, Yvette Cooper and Ed Balls realise that Brown's claims to have saved the Banks and the World were just the delusions of an eccentric.

Richard of York

greetings Vicky from Tampa Florida, did you think the internet stopped at Dover?

Read left foot forward they have a nice bar chart on the deficit. Funny I had an email from my cousin in Brisban complaining the economy was a tad static.
Good news on the Tobin tax being reported here but the news is Osborne will try and sink it to save his bullingdon mates in the banks....he is not liked much here and Cameron is thought to be a bit lightweight.
Coulson not going down a storm either. In general USA thinks the Tories are a joke.

Snowman

Paddy @ 7.21:

You're wasting your time arguing with the one with the rhyming name. Of course the economy ‘grew’ in the same sense a family was growing their assets by borrowing on a growing number of credit cards. B&B did exactly the same until they got unstuck. Here’s a quote from the Jeff Randall’s piece I offered earlier:

“When the wheels finally dropped off New Labour's charabanc at the last election, with rejection by 70 per cent of voters, it left behind an economy in a frightful mess. Unemployment was higher than in 1997, so, too, welfare dependency and personal bankruptcies. Private pensions had been vandalised and public finances were an utter disgrace, with the government spending about £150 billion a year more than it was receiving in taxes”.

The likes of the the rhyming names phylum had fugged up the country truly big, still cry for attention.

Have said it before, here goes again. One can forgive the B&B’s duo many things, one is unforgivable. In spite of the healthy tax receipts between 2003-07 they kept borrowing on top of them, spending the cash not on productive assets, but consumption i.e. buying votes. For this alone, B&B and their lackeys like Balls should be barred from holding any public office forever.

ian boyd

My god, what a wretched grease-weasel this man truly is.

Ali C

Balls: "so what". He's an arrogant fool who does not accept that there has been no 'growth' in the labour years; it was all a false house price bubble which Brown and his balls homunculus stroked larger so the dumb lemmings in this country thought they were 'doing well'. We weren't. It was all smoke and mirrors, and all the while balls and his masters spent money the UK didn't have. We are now facing years of paying it back and we have nothing to show for it at all apart from a huge national debt, a deficit that the coalition is trying to reduce, and a private sector that we need to help to pay it back. Dickie and his ignorant socialist drones conveniently ignore the truth while they spin drivel. But the adults in this country know the truth. You can't spend what you don't earn for ever - this is the reckoning of Balls and Brown's overspending on what... I don't know.

Simon Stephenson

Ali C : 11.46am

Yes, in the fullness of time, when all the vested interests have disappeared, it will be interesting (and informative) to see just how much of the declared economic growth of the last 10 years is the result of impermanent value-added in the financial sector, caused by deliberately inflated asset values allowing an over-optimistic view to be taken of future risk.

Tridentine

Mr Balls last name also applies to the level of intelligence underpinning his numerous rants.

Don't equate Mr Balls with double glazing salesmen, at least they are trying to (a) do a proper job in (b) a wealth creating section of the economy, two areas where Mr Balls has never attained anything.