New Balls?

tb

So what...

xenophon

The inference which Balls wants us to draw, presumably, from his faux apology is that the deficit and the debt are really entirely the fault of those unprincipled bankers; pretending to be sorry for not regulating them adequately is a way of blaming them for irresponsibility and avoiding any of the blame himself.

Baron

So essentially the man said what he’s said before, used few different words in mildly different order, is that it? And you’ve felt an irritable urge to tell us about it. Hmm

canonalberic

What was really remarkable about the Today interview was the collegiate chummy (even sycophantic) atmosphere. Balls was basically allowed to attack the coalition unchallenged. When the idiotic "sir" Nick Robinson cropped up at the end offering his banalities one got the impression they were all chastely in bed together like Morecombe and Wise.

It will be interesting to compare this to the glacially toned hectoring cross examination given to the evil tories next week.

GDT

@canonalberic 9:48am: -
I noticed the "collegiate chummy atmosphere".
It made me wretch. BBC is so biased it beggars belief.

arnoldo87

@ canonalberic

You misunderstand Nick Robinson's role.

When the BBC news shows a political speech extract lasting less than 60 seconds, Nick's job is to spend six minutes explaining to us what the politician was trying to say.

salieri

The Balls ‘interview’ on Today mirrored all the features noted under Rod Liddle’s latest CH thread. The questioning was perfunctory, lazy, fact-free and chiefly devised not to probe but to encourage self-justification - along with shameless and unchallenged mendacity.

Of course there was no alternative point of view. On some topics - paedophilia, the EU, climate change, Tory cuts - there just isn’t one. More precisely, in the BBC’s judgement there isn’t a reasonable contrary point of view, ergo none that should be allowed air-time: so that, in the result, the BBC is the self-appointed arbiter of what is and is not reasonable.

It’s easy to be impartial when you yourself define partiality.

Meanwhile it wastes license-payers’ money on incurably meretricious self-advertisement, usually showing black people in wheelchairs not falling off tall buildings.

Added to that, now that the government is in the wrong hands, is the ghastly, sniggering, joshing matiness which attends any subject on which ‘liberal’ philosophy might, even theoretically, be said to have strayed. The BBC’s unconscious approach is to ensure that the perceived error is marginalised, trivialised and literally laughed away. Peter Oborne’s treatment on air last week was an egregious example. Aided by the inarticulate wheezing chuckles of that intellectual Titan, Dennis McShane, Oborne was actively prevented from developing his thesis (that the BBC had been one of the 3 most consistently partisan supporters of the Euro): the supposed interview was simply taken over and then shut down by three hysterically guffawing, self-congratulating luvvies. Deliberate or not, it is a disgusting trick.

Percy

@canonalberic

Yes, it was truelly pathetic.

But to cheer yourself up just take a look at the disturbing photos of fatty Balls trying to play football in a football kit several sizes too small; he's clearly trying to convince himself he's still only xxxl.

(http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2041660/Ed-Balls-labours-football-pitch-tackling-real-issues.html)

Simon Stephenson.

salieri : 11.06am

"Of course there was no alternative point of view. On some topics - paedophilia, the EU, climate change, Tory cuts - there just isn’t one. More precisely, in the BBC’s judgement there isn’t a reasonable contrary point of view, ergo none that should be allowed air-time: so that, in the result, the BBC is the self-appointed arbiter of what is and is not reasonable."

Yes, but at its heart is the assumption that no one in the mainstream can possibly be behaving in a Machiavellian way. So, for an immoral or amoral politician with an unpopular agenda, the crucial thing is that he passes himself off as being part of the mainstream, where he will be acquire the accolade of "always acting in good faith, even though his judgement may on occasion be wrong". Whatever he proposes must be complimentary to his avowed aims and intentions, so an inability to see quite how this link is drawn is assumed to be a failure to understand the intricacies of the argument.

This is critical to modern political strategy, and everything else descends from it. It means that it is impossible for "straight" politics to survive, or for "straight" politicians to gain any momentum, because the Machiavellians have so much stronger weapons - for as long as the mainstream refuses to acknowledge their existence.

Ryan

Ed Balls is an electoral asset.. for the Tories. He is the Mark Latham of British politics.

Publius

"He is always worth listening to."

So, no doubt, was Hitler. So what?

...At least Balls doesn't simper and prevaricate.

Tiberius

"Even when Balls tells porkies..."

When does he not?

Publius

"porkies"

I note that I am censored when I dare to criticise the Editor's prissy choice of vocabulary.

So I say again, if Nelson thinks Balls is lying, say so. If he doesn't think Balls is lying, then stop using timid little terms like "porkies".

Deal with it, or shut up.

se1man

@Publius - me too, but I was censored for daring to point out that the sainted Editor had got something wrong: it's a five-point plan, not a five-year plan.

Rhoda Klapp

""Of course there was no alternative point of view. On some topics - paedophilia, the EU, climate change, Tory cuts - there just isn’t one. More precisely, in the BBC’s judgement there isn’t a reasonable contrary point of view, "

Here's a prediction. The BBC will give a favourable hearing to paedophilia before any of the others. In fact if Paedo was not tied to the RC church and therefore Christianity in their minds, they would be pushing it now.

I've been reading Machiavelli. I do not think he is so bad as to be compared with Ed Balls.

Simon Stephenson.

Publius : 2.07pm

Yes, I agree.

But this is all part of the mainstream refusal to see the possibility of immorality in men of power. Balls can only ever be telling little white lies, porkies, to advance the cause of the greater truth - he's doing no more than making it easier for us to get to the right answer. The mainstream stance is that he so believes that his recommendations are a superior way of regenerating the capitalist economy that he sometimes stretches a point in order to save time winning an argument that he would have won anyway, in the fullness of time.

There's never a thought that it's all claptrap, and that he's got no more intention of doing anything to give succour to the capitalist economy than he has of making a recording of Danny Boy in Welsh.

Writeangle

"All over the world, banks behaved irresponsibly and regulation wasnâ™t tough enough" It wasn't all over the world but the brainless US and EU. You are to blame if you deregulate, keep interest rates low and stand aside whilst banks go on a lending spree. Years before banks crashed Labour could have increased interest rates to control lending but were too stupid to do this.

Cynic

New Balls, old Balls, he still spouts a load of balls. Even somebody as economically illiterate as he is can see that the "drastic cuts" are only slightly deeper than Darling would have done and that actually, spending is still rising - just not as fast. The man has no credibility, but don't expect the BBC to do anything but give him an easy ride.

Paddy

canonalberic and GDT:

"The BBC were all chummy".

I think that's because they have given up with the Labour party. They are a joke and no serious interviewer can keep a straight face.

In other words they "can't be arsed".

michael

more pork less elan.