James Forsyth James Forsyth

What do you make of this Darling?

Ed Balls, who is—remember—Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families—has just given an interview to Sky News (video after the jump) solely on the economy. (The invaluable Politics Home has quotes from it, here).

Obviously, Balls knows a lot about the subject. But it seems odd that it is him who is put up to respond to the shadow Chancellor’s remarks on quantitative easing, when he is now not in an economic brief. Surely, it should have been the Chancellor himself or the Chief Secretary to the Treasury? This kind of thing is just going to fuel the rumours that Darling is being cut out of the loop by Downing Street and that a troika of Balls, Mandelson and Brown is now running economic policy with help from Shriti Vadera.

Update: Ed Balls’ office is in touch to say that Bllas was not put up to speak on the economy but that he gave an interview after had had delivered a speech on social work. Apparently, there was a non-economic part of the interview but it just wasn’t shown.
 

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