Why do so many people hate Ed Balls?

Why do so many people hate Ed Balls? It's a fair question and one that is getting a lot of attention in the blogosphere today. First there was Ellie Gellard's CIF article headlined 'Why Ed Balls should lead Labour' which included this claim

'I am well aware that Ed Balls is not the most popular candidate for Labour leader. Vilification by the rightwing press has led to an image of Balls which many who know him personally, many of whom I've spoken to, do not recognise. This will be an opportunity for the public to see the real Ed. Quite simply, it will be a cold day in hell when Labour party members choose our leader based on his popularity in the sections of the media we rightly loathe. Ed has the hunger, the drive and the fire in the belly to lead our party back into Downing Street. It is perhaps just that which the rightwing media fear.'

The 'right-wing press' reacted. Toby Young, not a man who courts popularity, wrote:

'Allow me to correct this misapprehension. The truth is that most rightwing commentators would dearly love to see Ed Balls as the next Labour leader. Not only does he come across badly on television – a Stalinist thug trying, unsuccessfully, to seem human – but he’s fatally tainted by his close association with Gordon Brown. He would be a terrible electoral liability, worse even than the insufferably smug Diane Abbott. Next to him, Michael Foot seems positively Churchillian.

The problem is. he produces such an instant, visceral dislike that we find it impossible to stop ourselves pointing out how ghastly he is. We all recognise, I think, that we should either keep quiet or relentlessly attack his politics, allowing the Ellie Gellard’s of this world to portray him as the leadership candidate we fear the most. But we simply can’t repress our violent hatred of the man. To adapt a phrase of Edward Heath’s, he is the unacceptable face of socialism. '

Commenter makers on Toby Young's article seem even less well disposed towards Ed Balls:

'Instant Saver -

If Ed Balls is elected Labour leader, by the time he comes to fight an election the gold price will be somewhere between $3,000 and $10,000 per ounce (the Telegraph’s Ian Cowie references $3,000 on the website today) and the loss to the people of Britain from the gold sales Balls orchestrated may have reached £70 billion.

I shall enjoy the election posters comparing £175 per ounce, which is what Balls dumped 60% of our national gold reserves for, and a possible market price of £5,000 per ounce come May 2015.

Ed Balls is toxic. Let’s pray he wins.


Angus Day -

I loathe him because he represents the very worst form of pseudo-intellectual, failed, statist socialism.

That he personally is a repellent, bullying, hectoring fascist of the worst kind is just the icing on the cake.

Now, can someone please convince Harridan to stand?


Instant Saver - In the manner of “Hey hey LBJ – how many kids did you kill today?” I invite early suggestions for a suitable interrogatory to hound the pigfaced Balls during the spring of 2015:

I’ll start you off:

“WHAT’S THE GOLD PRICE, TRAITOR?”'

Mind you those on The Guardian's page reacting to Ellie Gellard's column were not any more charitable:

'pdmalcolm -

Please god let Ed Balls be Labour leadr, purely for comic value

He's turned a safe seat into a marginal, he lied about how it happened (saying he fought the highest BNP vote in country, which went down), he's despised within his own party as a bully and a liar. He's an authoritarian control freak and I've never met anybody in education with a good word to say about him... But as long as he beleives in "progressive universalism" eh?


TrueLabourVoter -

I'm supporting Ed - in the absence of Gordon, he's by far the next best man... but he would be, Gordon taught him everything he knows - bullying, lying, using McBride et al to smear opponents... the list is endless.

He encapsulates the very definition of the Labour party today - widely hated amongst the general public; only just managing to cling onto office in what was once a very safe Labour seat; adapt at bending the rules to maximise his expense claims (just where isyour second home, Ed?); privileged Oxbridge education, yet quite happy to hypocritically attack others with the same; track record of wasting vast sums of public money whilst in office...

Yep, Ed's definitely the man for the job!

Vote Ed, get Gordon. The Labour party NEEDS this man!


Vercol -

Ed Balls is the partner in crime with Gordon who has created the deficit that will now do so much damage to public services.

Balls, like Brown, is economical with truth rather than other people's money. He makes it up as he goes along. He will have no truck with disagreement and no smear is too great.

I am one of the millions of life long Labour voters you have to win back. Balls will certainly not do it. Brown without the charm.'

Ed Balls the Labour party's Mr Popular and one of the few men capable of making Gordon Brown look like a normal human being.