Ed Balls is a bonny fighter and even his opponents often appear to enjoy being wound-up by the Shadow Chancellor’s pleasingly-shameless* approach to opposition. There was a typical piece of Ballsian chicanery during this afternoon’s debate on the economy when Balls accused George Osborne of stubbornly sticking to a failed “Plan A” and, to buttress his argument, pointed out that the New York Times agrees that the coalition has failed to get Britain working again.
Well, if the New York Times says something it must be true! Or, you know, not. Though the Old Gray Lady is a mighty paper it is not the last word on anything, let alone the British economy. In any case, its hostility to Cameron and Osborne is best understood as a proxy for the American argument about fiscal policy, not as a serious critique of the British experience.
In debating circles, Balls would lose points for making an argument from authority that, on closer inspection, is not even actually an argument from authority. Balls’ argument should rest on its own merits**, not on whether a foreign newspaper agrees with his analysis. The NYT may be right but their support for Balls does not in fact make his argument significantly more persuasive. (Incidentally, can one imagine a serious American politician condemning US government policy on the grounds that the Guardian or the Daily Telegraph thinks the White House has got it wrong? Quite.)
Finally, there is a convention of using phrases such as “even the liberal New Republic agrees” or “even the crypto-fascist Spectator says” to support one’s argument. But at least these have the merit of enlisting ones idelogical foes in the fight; Balls, on the other hand, wants us to be impresssed by the revelation that a left-wing American paper supports his left-wing economic analysis. Shockerooni!
I appreciate that this is really a minor point but it is, perhaps on account of my own undergraduate debating days, one that annoys me.
*That is, quite respectable.
**Everyone does this, of course, but at least organisations such as the IMF (also, to be fair, cited by Mr Balls) or the OECD have a little more credibility than a sanctimonious leader column that, generally speaking, makes the People’s Friend seem racy.
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