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Gordon Brown ‘fudged and trimmed’ to please Daily Mail, says Ed Balls
Paul Waugh and Anne McElvoy16 Sep 2010
Ed Balls delivered his most scathing criticism yet of Gordon Brown today, claiming the former premier “trimmed and fudged” to keep powerful newspapers onside.
The shadow education secretary said that Labour voters had been left confused by the way Mr Brown had muddied the party's message in a bid to appeal to Middle England.
The Labour leadership candidate, one of Mr Brown's closest former aides, told the BBC that he “disagreed strongly” with the decision to axe the 10p tax rate and to abandon plans for a snap election in 2007.
In an interview with the Standard, Mr Balls made a veiled pitch for the job of shadow chancellor and admitted that on a personal level he preferred George Osborne to David Cameron. He said: “Whoever wins should put that job (shadow chancellor) at the heart of what they stand for and how to take on the Coalition. And they should get the best person for the job to do it.”
That would be him, then? “I'm not going there, because the leader has to do that, but the job should go to the best qualified person.”
He also reveals that he has sent his daughter to an “average” comprehensive school in Hackney. Rival leadership contender Diane Abbott famously sent her son to private school amid concerns about the standard of state schools in the borough.
He said that “average schools” support ambition and talent “perfectly well”, sending his eldest daughter to Stoke Newington Comprehensive though she could have gone to one of the new Hackney academies. It was important that she “goes to school locally and can be with her friends”, he added.
Mr Balls told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that he had disagreed with Mr Brown over a string of issues.
“I disagreed strongly with Gordon on the 10p tax rate cut, I thought we should have gone for the election in 2007, I felt that he trimmed and fudged his message to try to keep the Daily Mail happy in a way which meant that people didn't know where we stood. I said that to him many times,” he said.
“If you fudge your message and kow-tow to the extent that the Labour voter doesn't know where you stand, you pay a price.”
Reader views (16)
'Knowing you, knowing me. Aha! I'm Ed Balls'
- Dennis, N London, 16/09/2010 17:37
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Interesting, I don't remember Mr Balls airing his disagreement at the time. Perhaps he should grow a backbone?
- Polly, London, 16/09/2010 16:26
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Hey Kay the new Ken mouth piece you sound just like the last failed Liebour luvvy mickinlondon, where are you mick, though l did hear he defected to the UKIP, so perhaps he is sound a sleep somewhere, and really Kay your comments are so last year.
- terry, london, 16/09/2010 16:05
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What wonderful schadenfreude watching this hapless bunch of NuLabor hasbeens turning on themselves.
We just have to be so grateful that they did not get returned at the election; but clearing up the mess they left is not going to be easy - but at least now the mess has been fully exposed.
- John Bull, London, 16/09/2010 15:01
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The Daily (Hate) Mail is not powerful, their readers are too scared to leave the house!
- Kay Burley ate my hamster, Hackney, London, 16/09/2010 14:11
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Powerful newspapers? What, the Grauniad and the Mirror?
Unpalatable chip-wrappers, both of them.
And "trimmed and fudged" - is that MP-speak for "LIED"?
- Nobby Clark, Perth, the Scottish one, 16/09/2010 12:36
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Balls epitomises all that is wrong with Labour! privileged ex public school boy, totally out of touch with the people who elected him, but promoted by the 'party' machine like the majority of Labour MP's! Labours machinations far better illustrate their reality than Orwells 'Animal Farm' could ever do!
- Kevin Sullivan, Roehampton, London., 16/09/2010 11:49
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Agree with Neil from Cardiff - Balls should retire from politics and go back to Nottingham High and teach political history - and educate the kids of the miserbale record under Labour.
- Tom, St. Albans, 16/09/2010 11:19
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Fat stuttering fool! Balls has not lost any credibility as he never had it in the first place! Doesn't he realize how idiotic he sounds and looks?
- James from Camden, London, 16/09/2010 11:04
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Balls is a SPIV man. Please leave politics for good after the Milkybar Kid brothers trounce you in the Labour leadership farce.
- Neil Pillock MEP, Cardiff, 16/09/2010 11:03
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Head to Balls, no good saying now you strongly disagreed with the brown one, its 13 years to late. Bit to late to wipe the brown one off your shoes; like mud it sticks. Take your views and keep them in opposition. The Labour Party needs needs a new broom.
- Sylvester, Cornhill, London, 16/09/2010 10:48
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The lot of them would put the "Krays" to shame
- Richard, Rayleigh, 16/09/2010 10:39
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Ed Balls sacked Sharon Shoesmith to deflect attention from the reality, that in all the years that he was head of the Childrens Safeguarding Unit, within his Department of Children Schools and Families, he failed to respond, in any effective way, to all the concerns raised to him regarding the lack of ability to be enabled to protect the IDENTIFIED being abused children, within the existing child protection in practice situation.
He failed to learn the lessons from all the
preventable child abuse deaths where IDENTIFIED being abused at risk children were nevertheless enabled to be further mind and body tweisted or as in the case of Peter enabled (some would say aided) to be slowly tortured to death.
He failed to listen to all the individuals who contacted him who expressed the URGENT need to redesign child protection in practice so that it could work for the very children that the child protection system is in existence for.
The IDENTIFIED at risk children are now in a situation where they have little in the way of child protection ability, to come to, in practice, at all.
Maybe Ed Balls would like to make ammends and set himself up as THE MINISTER FOR CHILDREN who will lead an effort NOW to put what is going so wrong, right, within frontline child protection in practice?
The children are dying in waiting for change!
- Darnthesafetynet, London W11 1NR, 16/09/2010 10:13
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I would not trust Balls as far as I could throw him.
- Reuben Camara, Plot 1, Morecambe Compound, UKSSR, 16/09/2010 09:30
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No he did n't fudge Ed - we saw him exactly the way he was, and, I saw through him after his very first budget when he ribbed my pension.
He carried on robbing for 13 years.
- Anglo, Sussex UK, 16/09/2010 09:20
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Ed, thought you were Gordon's protege. Nice piece of loyalty but then I suppose you're desperate not to be humiliated.
- Stephen C, London, 16/09/2010 08:57
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