True. Even I’d give a fiver to see Balls give Gove a headfirst latrine-flush.

Although it’s important to state again that you still can’t have a prime minister called Balls. You just can’t.

Totally agree. He has definitely impressed most so far, and I can imagine Gove breathing a huge sigh of relief if Balls is no longer his shadow.

So much for the Left’s pacifism!

I can assure you that the Labour leader every Tory is praying for (absent a shock Abbott win) is Ed Balls.

The Tories are not afraid of Ed Balls.

for all right-wing predictions of a Labour Party being split by infighting …..

No, that phase starts after Labour’s new leader has been elected.

Building schools for the future is expensive,bureaucratic and slow. It costs a fortune in fees and (from what the architects I know tell me) its over-tight specifications result in dreary buildings unable to respond creatively to the specific circumstances of the commission. Private Eye has been skewering this for years. There are better procurement routes for the schools which most urgently need rebuilding and large sums of money could be freed up to maintain those where circumstances are less dire. With cash tight it seems a reasonable policy albeit one which creates considerable scope for an argument about which schools should be better maintained and which should be rebuilt under the new procurement arrangements.

Leading a march is the politics of desperation – you will remember how well those worked for the Stop the War coalition and for the Countryside Alliance.

You’re right about how effectively he’s channeling his energy into attacking the Tories, and indeed using that to lift his leadership campaign off the floor. He’s a big hitter who will be an important part of Labour’s team. But not, I think as Leader!

It started badly enough, with Michael Gove having to resort to accusing the BBC of right-wing bias (snort!) since he had nothing of substance to say.

Eh? I’m pretty sure he didn’t accuse them of right-wing bias, more an inability to see the point in value-for-money.

‘I believe in value for money. It maybe a concept that was alien to the last government and it may not be a concept that the BBC would like to see applied to public expenditure but I believe that it is important that the taxpayer gets protection for the money that it spent on his or her behalf.’

It’s no wonder the Tories hate Ed Balls so much – he doesn’t flaff about – he just punches them in the face. Hilariously, they’re now begging advising Ed Miliband not to appoint him in a senior position. That’s the first sign of a bloody nose.

Please, I’m begging you! Don’t elect Balls as leader, we Tories are terrified of him. He’d be the worst possible leaders as far as we’re concerned. And if you don’t make him leader, then please don’t make him chancellor! Someone with his great likeability and vast presentational skills at the heart of opposition would be dreadful!

Of course, this rather obscures the more fundamental truth, which is that everyone in the country wants to blat Balls in the face repeatedly…

People whining about how the Tories are proposing to fuck over ‘education’ in this country (and I’m one of them) should remember that Balls laid the foundations for all of it.

He is a deeply unpleasant and odious character – I imagine he was one of those sad children who pulled the wings off insects for fun.

It is interesting language Sunny uses. No doubt Sunny claims to be a democrat yet he supports violence against an opponent . No wonder so many children in gangs consider violence is acceptable to resolve disputes.

I guess we all see what we want to see, but I doubt whether many people beyond Labour tribalists see Balls as either effective or attractive.

VOTE BALLS!

Kate @1: Ed Balls isn’t in a contest to be PM. He’s in a contest to be leader of the opposition. There’s an important difference, and Labour could do well to get the hang of them being different jobs.

Is “punch in the face” an appropiate metaphor for the practise of democratic politics ? Its not that far from the BNPs ” a brick through the window is the British way”.

”It is interesting language Sunny uses. No doubt Sunny claims to be a democrat yet he supports violence against an opponent . ”

Violence against tories is perfectly acceptable dontcha know?

More to the point, DMilliband is working on an alternative deficit reduction plan, which makes him a serious politician, though I doubt I’ll agree with everything he comes up with.

Balls isn’t, preferring the fingers in the ears approach. LC likes this approach better.

Right.

Oh for goodness’ sake, let’s not be such shrinking violets. There’s nowt wrong with imagery like “punching the face” – even if I disagree with Sunny’s analysis, a little bit more violent imagery would be no bad thing where politicians are concerned.

16 – only imagery?

Funny how all the concern trolls arrived at once. Wonder who sent them…

It’s strange that the Tories seem have the smugness that can only be associated with winning elections – which if we think back to May, they did not do. Your advice on election-winning leaders would perhaps get a warmer reception if your party had actually won an election since 1992. You may argue that Balls would be a ‘core vote’ candidate for Labour, but the pathological hatred of Balls displayed Tory and Libertarian bloggers is equally limited to your a small number of activists. Most of the public have no opinion, outside of the whole funny name thing, on Ed Balls.

Ed Balls may be very good at punching the coalition in the face and this:

ED BALLS, the schools secretary, used Damian McBride, the disgraced spin doctor, to smear ministerial rivals and advance his own ambitions, a Downing Street whistleblower has claimed.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6122756.ece

It’s a pity he wasn’t up to giving better advice on economic policy issues such as the housing market and the stagnation of social mobility.

There’s nowt wrong with imagery like “punching the face” – …. a little bit more violent imagery would be no bad thing

Not sure it helps attracts the sisterhood into politics though – except perhaps the likes of Kate B who’s no stranger to the ‘headfirst latrine flush’.

#16

Mr Eugenides has it spot on. If you think describing politicians being punched in the face is a bit extreme, you clearly haven’t spoken to the public in the last several years. I remember campaigning against MPs expenses in Dewsbury, we not only had people demanding MPs be hung, shot or put in prison, and one guy even went off on one about the sort of reception MPs would get if there were put in prison – particularly focusing on the prison showers!

@ 22

But does the Left really want to come across as a coalition of nonces and thugs, or Ed Balls as the steroid-fuelled Raoul Moat of opposition politics?

we not only had people demanding MPs be hung, shot or put in prison,

Surely the order should be reversed.

Balls, I think, has an easy task as Education shadow, simply because Gove is so bad at it. Any half-decent MP in the same position could do the same. His work in government was one of the few reasons I was relieved to see Labour out of power, because his own actions and policies were an authoritarian mess.

#12: Well, yes, but unless Labour is intending to either have another leadership election before 2015, or to intentionally lose the 2015 general election, then selecting a leader of the opposition who would not also make a good Prime Minister seems rather pointless. Balls would not make a good Prime Minister. I don’t think he’d make a good leader of the opposition, either.

#22: Absolutely. What politics needs is more death threats and rape threats. That’ll … um … err … Profit!

Given that it’s the people who the left claims to support and claims the right opposes who tend to suffer most from political and politicised violence, I think it’s right for the left to avoid the use of violent imagery as political metaphor, and consistently condemn its use and normalisation.

here’s a lovely German word that means “a face badly in need of a fist”

Micheal Gove is my nomination.

Yes, please elect Balls as Leader! Labour will be back in government in no time!

“Boy, there is anger at the scale and ferocity of the Coalition’s cuts, which has meant a lot of instant unity against the government.”

Hypocritical anger, given that Darling said Labour’s cuts would be worse than Thatcher’s.

The US Republican Party was also predicted to fall apart due to infighting after Obama won, but in fact they actually became revitalised and went on full-attack mode. I’m not sure if Labour needs to be taking its lessons from the GOP, I don’t think it’s healthy for them.

@ Flowers – ironically enough, many people think I have balls.

Re: whoever made the point about Balls not being PM – yeah, I know that, doofus. Lighten up. And please don’t insist that I’m Labour. Call me a hairy old Jewish bushpig if you must, but please don’t call me Labour.

If it came to fight between the Tories and Labour MPs who would win? The days when Labour had plenty of MPs who had worked in heavy industry are long gone( such as Ernie Bevin) . Historically the Tories have had plenty of ex-military as MPs. Ed Balls looks overweight and unfit while Millibands and Burnham look light weights. Cameron looks as if he has some stamina; Clegg is a former ski instructor; IDS is a former captain in the Scots Guards. Overall, I would say the Tories look fitter than Labour.

Haha, clearly I’m not arguing that the strategy of the Left should resolve around making obscene and deranged threats of sexual violence against senior government figures. I would have thought that I wouldn’t really need to explain this to people.

What I am saying is that the pious, po-faced Tories who are trying to criticise Sunny for violent imagery (and in the case of comment 10, arguing that articles like this provoke gang violence lmao) are clearly quite far from the public mood. There is still huge anger at MPs and the whole corrupt system.

Trying to steer the discussion back to the original article, Ed Balls as leader could easily capitalise on this mood. We have two slick salesmen leading the government, who are about to preside over the biggest program of cuts since WW2. Perhaps the public will want someone who will take the fight to the government, and who doesn’t come across as the heir to the heir to Blair. Someone who comes across as a bit of a bruiser, rather than stuck in a sixth form debating society. Obviously, on the other hand, Balls may struggle to capture this mood with his ministerial and his expenses records.

If Ed Balls is the campaigner we hope and is willing to take the Tories on in the trenches, should he be wasted on the trivial position of leadership of the Labour Party? Given that Labour are looking inward to carry on infighting and pointless policy mode, those of us on the left need someone with, well, er, ‘Balls’ to stand up for the real people and what they believe in. Neither of the useless Millibands is willing or capable of connecting with the general public (i.e. the non political anoraks), so their ‘talents’ are better spent coming up with and explaining a ‘deficit reduction plan’ that they will never get the chance to implement anyway to Andrew Marr. The real battle for the next election will be in the streets, hospitals, schools, meeting halls all over the Country.

Right now, Ed Balls is the only politician on the Left who appears to be willing to stand up for the things that matter to most people, let us not shackle him to a post where he is totally ineffective. Let one of the Nodding donkey Millibands stand at the despatch box pointing out the missed commas or the extra ‘ifs’ and let Balls keep his powder dry and take the battle to where the battle actually takes place, the hearts and minds of the electorate.

“let Balls keep his powder dry and take the battle to where the battle actually takes place, the hearts and minds of the electorate”

What’s his majority in his constituency again?

@29 – I think a coalition of the smaller parties would win. I’m sure Sinn Féin, Plaid Cymru and the SNP could field a few bruisers, whilst the mainstream parties would have to rely on weight of numbers – is it possible to fight if all you have is noxious gas in a suit?

Seriously though, I think the trouble with “those of us on the left” pushing Balls as a candidate “with… Balls” who will take on the Tories and “stand up for the real people” is simply the fact that he’s a colossal twat who is ultimately responsible for many of the problems in education.

Balls is universally despised by every teacher I know (this is a large number), and the vast majority of them are lefties.

In fact – does anyone like him?

To paraphrase someone or other, if Balls is the answer we’re asking the wrong question… fair play to him pulling the coalition up on their bullshit policies though.

Hairy old Jewish bushpig aka. Kate @28: It was me (the Paul you know from Bickerstaffe) who said it.

And I know that you know that Ed Balls is not running to be PM. I was simply making the general point that Ed Balls might make a very good opposition leader, but not necessarily a good PM, and that the Labour party in general (ie. not you, because I know you’re not a Labour member) might do well to separate out the two function in its own mind when it comes to deciding who should be leader for now. Five years is a long time in opposition, and by 2015 one of the people might have worked out how to be PM better than they have now, and Labour should remain conscious of the potential for change at the appropriate point and with due preparation.

Just lighten up there yourself, numptiebrain.

J @ 33

He may be a twat and he may be ‘despised’, but none of that matters IF he can mobilise an effective anti Tory campaign.

Irrespective of his twatness, he is the highest profile person willing to take the fight to the Tories, albeit in a limited fashion, therefore too important to be wasted leading a moribund party. So until the Left/Labour movement can put up a credible candidate, he is the last best hope. It is a bit like having the worst goalkeeper in the league ‘if he is the best in your team he has to be played. He is putting his face were others are not willing to be seen, he is standing up for causes that none of the other candidates are willing or able to do. Neither Milliband would be seen dead at a picket line; they are ideally suited to stand at the despatch box agreeing with Cameron and Clegg.

I hope that Balls because a minor player in the battle against the ideological Tory cuts, that would mean that the high profile PLP would have managed to scrape up some backbone between them and actually stand for something.

So, far the only decisive policy I have heard, it a promise to campaign on gay marriage! I support gay marriage, but no-one is likely to be galvanised by this.

Repeatedly punching them in the face ??? I don’t think anyones even noticed the smarmy little tosser, he was Gordos tea boy and is treated as such by everyone who matters

Jim @36: I get your passion, but I don’t think you’re doing your argument any favours by describing the Labour party as ‘moribund’. There’s no evidence that it is (in dire financial straits is a different matter) and for the non-Labour left simply to dismiss the Labour party as an irrelevance is potentially to miss out on linking with an important human, institutional and (via unionism) financial resource.

I’m not saying that the LP is yet in a position to offer that resource as well as it should, but it’s less likely to get into that position if the non-Labour left continue to approach Labour in the way you suggest.

So much for the Left’s pacifism!

You should see how much fun I have with a semi-automatic assault rifle.

No wonder so many children in gangs consider violence is acceptable to resolve disputes.

I didn’t know Tories were such wusses.

The Tories are not afraid of Ed Balls.

Really? Have you read that ConHome editorial? It’s actually quite (unintentionally) funny.

Both Ken Livingstone and Derek Hatton were pretty good at running high impact anti-Tory campaigns. Byt they’d have been crap prime ministers.

Paul @ 38

I am not merely dismissing the Labour Party because of the empty coffers. I see it from an external point of view. The Labour Party started to die off as a political force over two years ago. Remember the election that never was? David Cameron saved his political bacon at the Tory conference by abandoning his weak attempt at ‘one Nation Tory’ by a straight forward call to arms via a tax cut. Not just any old tax cut, but a tax cut aimed specifically aimed at the richest families on the planet, let alone this Country.

Anyway, it had the desired result, The Tories got their poll bounce, Brown crapped himself and, as the best books say, the rest is history. That is only half the story of course, Cameron was taking a huge gamble, he was opening up his weakest flank, he was waking the corpse of the old Tory Party, the one that stood for wealth and privilege. Cameron was dragging Thatcherism out of the grave it stood for everything the Tories had been trying to hide and the skeletal remains where being reanimated in front of our eyes. The one thing you would expect the Labour Party to do well is class war. Here was one of the richest men on the planet campaigning to give his millionaire friends a huge windfall and the Labour Party stood in silence.

A few half hearted mutterings, but by and large, silence. I remember that week as if it were yesterday. Instead of Labour pinning it to forehead of every Tory at every opportunity, ‘Any Questions’, ‘Question Time’, ‘Newsnight’. THAT is when Labour lost the election, because the fight had left them. They had been pacified to the point that they did not what to attack a cut in inheritance tax cut, lest it looked a bit ‘left wing’. It came as no surprise to me when Cameron dumped that policy when it was no longer needed. Once Labour were on the back foot with calamity after calamity befalling them, there was simply no fight left to mount a successful relaunch. The infighting began and once the Tories were allowed to pin the recession onto Gordon Brown unopposed, again due to jockeying for position post ‘Brown’, no-one was pointing out that the recession was caused by capital and shareholder greed, not Brown trying to keep the Country afloat and the Tories made political capital from that. I could go on, but you get the idea.

We see that Labour’s supporters are taking huge kickings, but the Labour Party dare not oppose them, because lax employment laws, zero hour contracts, unorganized labour are now flagship principles. The labour abandoned it roots to entice the middle classes, well now that middle classes went back to the Tories and Lib Dems, the wider Labour movement are a hollowed out shell and we have millions who don’t vote and millions who don’t even register to vote either. Labour’s constituencies are shrinking through disinterest and they about to be shrunk on the map too.

So you have the natural support falling away.
The new vote falling away.
The organising base falling.
The financial base dying too.

Moribund?

Blair lost 4 million votes between the elections in 1997 and 2005 as well as at least half the membership of the Labour Party

@41 “Here was one of the richest men on the planet campaigning to give his millionaire friends a huge windfall and the Labour Party stood in silence.”

Because opinion polls and focus groups consistently showed that attacking it (inhertiance tax) looked like the politics of envy (i.e old style labour class war) and would lose middle ground votes in marginal seats. In that sense it was a consequence of the fault line in the party created by Blairism.

@ 1 “Although it’s important to state again that you still can’t have a prime minister called Balls. You just can’t.”

Glad someone has had the balls to point that out. I can see why he didn’t go into teaching though.

Gove’s an arsehole, almost certainly the worst of the cabinet ministers (hell, he makes Warsi look competent), and can even make ideas I broadly favour, like the pupil premium that came from the LDs, sound bad when he’s describing them, but this?

now he wants to use anti-terrorism laws to push through the bill

Bullshit.

It’s a longstanding procedure normally used for controversial measures, including the finance bill and terror legislation. Rushing it through is bad, but doing it in a committee of the whole house?

That’s been done many times before, and it’s got nothing to do with using anti-terror legislation to do it, any journalist (or, indeed, blogger) repeating this bloody meme needs to go and get a reality check.

Attack the man for being a useless incompetent arsehole who could persuade me to oppose pretty much anything he favours. You don’t need to repeat blatently innaccurate lies.

FFS, he makes Ed Balls look good. Doesn’t that tell you something?

@Matt Murno

PM Balls sounds okay, after all, we had a PM named after a car insurance firm for a while…

FFS, he makes Ed Balls look good. Doesn’t that tell you something?

Not really. Don’t think Gove could make anyone look good.

And the point about pushing the education bill – the biggest shake up of education in this country for 60 years – being pushed through in a week needs to be emphasised. You may not like the comparison with anti-terror legislation but it stands.

No Sunny, it doesn’t. He’s not “using” anti-terror legislation. The Bill is being pushed through “in the same way” as anti-terror legislation.

That’s a completely different thing, it changes the facts substantially. The HoC says these procedures are used for controversial legislation (I can go dig out a link to the exact guidance notes if you want, I have read them recently).

This legislation is certainly controversial.

Saying he’s “using” anti-terror laws to push it through is utterly wrong, completely incorrect and fatuous.

And I think you may be misunderstanding what I meant when I said he makes Balls look good. In comparison to Gove, pretty much everyone looks better and more competent, even Balls.

Fuck it.
http://www.parliament.uk/site-information/glossary/committee-of-the-whole-house/

The term Committee of the Whole House means that a Bill can be discussed in detail by all Members. In the Commons this usually takes place in a Public Bill Committee, outside the Chamber, but occasionally a Bill will be considered in a Committee of the Whole House in the main Chamber. Any Bill can be referred to a Committee of the Whole House but the procedure is normally reserved for finance Bills and other important, controversial legislation. In the House of Lords the committee stage of a Bill usually takes place in the Lords Chamber and any Member can take part. The Committee may choose to vote on any amendment, and all Members present can vote.

The timetabling stinks, but it has nothing to do with anti-terror laws.

And now he wants to use anti-terrorism laws to push through the bill! ..

Ridiculously inaccurate.

It’s a longstanding procedure normally used for controversial measures, including the finance bill and terror legislation.

… and electoral administration, human rights, national insurance contributions, constitution, building societies, joint Government departments, Human Fertilisation and Embryology …

The idea that Gove is incompetent or useless needs a bit of critical re-examination.

On the plus side:

1. He’s managed to successfully shift a high proportion of the blame for the cuts in school building onto incompetent bureaucrats and Ed Balls.

2. He’s finessed the chaos over the lists into a good reason to scrap the quango responsible – a quango he wanted an excuse to scrap anyway.

3. By the end of the week he’ll be the first departmental minister to have got his flagship legislation onto the statute book.

Not bad for the first two and half months in office.

Gove’s an arsehole, almost certainly the worst of the cabinet ministers…

Is this entirely on the basis of an inaccurate document detailing the roll-back of the BSF? Gove was, by a distance, the most impressive member of the shadow cabinet before and during the campaign. His schools policy was, again by a distance, the most radical and detailed policy to emerge from any party before the election, and he’ll be putting the bulk of it into law by the summer recess.

Sure he has a squeaky voice, but I don’t understand the viscerally anti-Gove mood on the left just now. Maybe he’s the anti-Balls…

And Another Thing:

It stretches credibility that Balls (or indeed anyone who used to be in the former Labour Government) is criticising the new Government for fast tracking legislation and attempting to avoid proper scrutiny.

I provided in my comment @51 seven examples of different categories of legislation considered in a Committee of the Whole House – all during Labour’s time in office. There was a lot of other legislation where Labour was criticised – sometimes by its own MPs – for allowing insufficient time for proper scrutiny.

They’ve got some front, I’ll give them that.

Is there anyone untainted who the Labour party is prepared to have represent it in Opposition?

Matt @ 43

Because opinion polls and focus groups consistently showed that attacking it (inhertiance tax) looked like the politics of envy (i.e old style labour class war) and would lose middle ground votes in marginal seats.

Try to think back to 2008. Labour where very popular with the voters at the time. Cameron was a very different person than the slick, Tory we see today. He was deeply despised among the rank and file pissed soaked, elderly Tories that dominate the Tory conference because he was trying to appeal to decent people by advocating ‘fairness’ (in the real sense, not the Tory one), helping the poor and even going so far advocating science!!!!! The Tory heartlands were streaming over to the BNP/UKIP in droves and the Tories were about to be wiped off the political map by a fourth Labour victory. Cameron was not trying to win decent people over by a cut in IHT, he was attepting to appeal to the blue rinsers. Give him his due, it worked and that little bounce in the polls saved his skin.

No-one is likely to switch from Labour to Tory, merely by being offered a cut in IHT, are they?

Try to think back to 2008. Labour where very popular with the voters at the time.

I must have been around in a different 2008. The one I remember was the one where Labour finished third in the local elections, 20 points behind the Tories, and lost the London Mayoralty. Maybe you mean 2009, when Labour finished, um, third in the local elections and third in the European Elections with a majestic 15%. Or maybe 2007, when Labour did pretty well under Tony Blair, getting a whopping 27% in the locals, a mere 13 points behind the Tories.

Tim J @ 56

I must have been around in a different 2008.

No doubt you are thinking about the 2008 that happened in 2008. I, of course, am talking about the 2008 that actually happened in October 2007 three, long, hard years ago, rather than the mere two I was thinking about.

I stand both corrected and more than a bit sorry for myself.

See, I read the comment notifications thinking “surely Jim means Oct 2007 there”.

Bloody Brown’s fault, if he’d either called that election, or made it clear it wasn’t going to happn, Cameron would’ve been toast and the Tories would’ve ripped themselves apart. But because he made it look like an election was imminent, the Tories rallied and had a unity conference, the rest is pretty much history.

I think, apart from the whole deficit crisis, it was Gordo’s biggest failure.

Balls might be a great at mobilising an anti tory campaign. Problem is, the country doesn’t hate the Tories anymore. Infact despite the big cuts and the free schools nonsense and the big society confusion and the WW2 gaffe, the public do seem to have warmed to Cameron Conservatism + the Coalition.

I think the joining up with the Libs has got something to do with it. Cameron doesnt seem tribal, he doesn’t instinctively hate everything that wasn’t his idea. Labour still appear to just hate things for the sake of hating them like the pupil premium (which I’d imagine most other left wingers would support). Balls is an attack dog, but not one with any ideas of his own. Hating the Tories goes down well with those voters who fly a red flag above their house, but for the floating centre/left who may have been seduced by Cleggmania or the Greens or even the Tories, Labour can’t just rely on hate.

This contest needs less vitriol and more ideas/policies. Particularly on the deficit. People keep asking “what would you cut?” Labour WOULD have made deep cuts, worse than Thatchers – time we started admitting it and being honest as to where they come.

A final word about Balls’ punching of the coalition – Labour might need the support of another party next time round. Coalition-bashing might not be the smartest reason for electing a leader who may have to lead a coalition himself in 4-5 years time.