Ed Balls takes the voters for fools
I've just heard Ed Balls on Radio 4's The World at One.
And it was an almost unbelievable performance, except our expectations have been lowered so much by the pond life moral standards of this Labour government.
Presented with the simple proposition that Labour's own figures showed they were going to have to make large cuts, most likely in Education, Balls kept banging on about a misuse of taxpayers money he had cooked up to try and make the Michael Gove look bad.
Balls, a real thug amongst politicians that he is, always interrupted Mr Gove and I'm afraid Martha just couldn't hold the ring with him - letting him off her first and key question.
But worse of all was Ball's misuse of language to mislead, obscure and misdirect the listener. When the show is put up on listen again and I have a few minutes I'll put some of it up here.
Fraser Nelson warned us a few days ago that Labour's plans for the general election were to just keep lying all the time - even when they were found out. He wasn't wrong.
Summing up on The World at One 15 Jun 09 ( Martha is speaking live before a recording of Ed Ball's comment made earlier in the program ).
Martha Kearney "The schools secretary has defended plans for funding schools Ed Balls and has Denied that Labour would also have to cut 
spending"
Ed Balls - "I won't admit that. Of course there are going to have to be tough choices, of course we are going to have to be more efficient. What I said today is it will depend on what happens to the economy and to unemployment and debt interest, but I that with tough choices we can see real rise in the schools budget and the NHS budget in future years."
Just look at the words Ed Balls has used. Marta says he's denied Labour will cut education, but that's not what Mr Balls said - though he said it in a way that easily leads to that mistake ( ie very misleading ).
Remember Balls is trying to deny the Labour budget. What do these "tough choices" mean ? They are of course money being spent in one place and not another - and that boys and girls - is mostly going to mean cuts.
The caveats he uses are his get out clause on the cost of unemployment and the cost of debt ( yes that's interesting - Labour are perhaps more worried about their ability to run up the nations debts on the
Then the most disgusting weasel bit of Ed Balls' words - the vague promise that schools budgets and NHS will rise in "future years". Which exactly ? Could be 2050, 2200, when pigs fly ?
What we have is a statement that is the very opposite of what an honourable man would give if he was honestly trying to inform people about his policies.
But then Labour aren't honourable at all. ( See this from Iain Dale about the vile smearing that Hattie Harman is trying on to drag more peoples money back to help the bankrupt Labour party).
There is no plan any time soon to be honest with the people of the country by Labour. Instead they intend to try the dirty tactics that Brown used in 2005. There are rumours that Damian McBride is out there working for Labour. ( So yet another example of the complete fecklessness of Gordon Brown and the Labour party about their faked outrage over the smeargate scandal and Gordon taking tough measures "because he's very angry about this ").
Labour are now clearly an amoral party that either just couldn't tell the truth if it tried or has entered a pact with the devil to lie in exchange for power and a few more years as parasites of the taxpayers of this country.
Update note: Thats starting to look like a key observation. Guido reports that banks are having to be paid to desperately try to sell government debt - bypassing the Debt Management Office Gordon Brown set up ! Perhaps the key moment of the crisis isn't far away. ( If so I would expect Labour to call a general election first as that might stablise the debt sale problem with the markets thinking a Conservative government is coming in to clean uip the mess, whilst saving Labour from being found out about have badly they have betrayed us with their finaicial waste and unaffordable spending )
6 comments:
He does take the voters for fools, like Millipede - they've been groomed to do that.
ting you should mention the gap year student. He was just on the radio trying to obsurfiy (a Bushism ?) the fact that Labour chose a load of supporters to run the Iraq inquiry.
He's almost as bad as his wife...
Yes; a fascinating interview. Michael Gove said at the end "this is a historic interview because Ed began this interview by promising that Education spending would increase after 2011...." before accusing him of then making a U turn.
But as your quote in red (which was Ball's first reference to 2011 spending) and comment above make absolutely clear, he made no promise - the caveats were there from the outset.
I'm not commenting on the Labour or Conservative policy. Just asking - how can we debate the policies if the politicians are going to lie?
@El Mystico: The problem is that since New Labour's birth politicians now major in communicating with people's sub conscious. Whilst when you sit down and analyse Ed Balls words you realise he promised nothing at all, you initial reaction is that he did ( as was Martha's ).
The answer is to give credit where credit is due, and damn those who speak it riddles and half truths. Once a politician starts speaking like Mr Balls did we shouldn't believe a word he says there after - he's lost his privileged to be credible.
Also the media need to sharpen up their act on interviews etc. Its their job to tell the listener when verbal tricks are being used to mislead.
What many of us would perhaps on first sight consider as lying is often deceit, evasion and obscuring the facts. But the effect is the same.
As you say we can't have a proper political debate - or even an effective democracy under those conditions.
Hi Man in a Shed;
What a strange comment!
"Communicating with people's sub conscious?"
My initial reaction was thaat he made no promise; which is why Gove's comment stood out so clearly to me.
However - I completely agree we can't give credit to lying politicians (e.g. Gove as demonstrated in this interview) - and also that the interviewers need to highlight these issues.
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