The road to Damascus has nothing on this. Ed Balls – in interview with the FT – has condemned the class war strategy, called for an end to Labour figures briefing against each other, and suggested that the government should be more “upfront” about spending cuts. Hallelujah! What a difference an attempted coup makes! And so on and so on.
But wait a minute. What does the Schools Secretary actually say? Worth looking at, that – because Balls hasn’t so much changed his arguments as changed the way he makes them. Take, for instance, what he says about class war:
“‘I’m totally against a class war strategy,’ he says. But he describes Mr Brown’s Commons remark that Mr Cameron made policy ‘on the playing fields of Eton’ as a ‘really good joke’. Alastair Campbell is widely thought to have been the author of the quip.
He argues that his ‘many not the few’ rhetoric is not Old Labour but is in the DNA of New Labour.
Britain’s best politics newsletters
You get two free articles each week when you sign up to The Spectator’s emails.
Already a subscriber? Log in
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in