What to do with Balls?

Ed Balls is adept at opposition – making a case throughout the recent leadership hustings for immigration controls that he knows are unworkable in practice.

Mike Smithson reports than a senior Lib Dem thinks Ed Balls would be an ideal opponent for Liam Fox, the man to exploit the coalition’s most obvious weakness. It’s a salivating prospect for the independent observer – confrontation between two skilled and principled communicators – and if anyone can damage a Conservative-led government on defence it is Balls.

But there’s the rub. In their ideal worlds, Balls and Fox don’t differ on the broad principles of defence policy. Balls’ call for the independent nuclear deterrent’s renewal and the defence of Labour’s interventions were a feature of his hustings, as was protecting essential public services – and, in the mindset of opposition, they don’t come more essential than the armed forces in a time of war.