Now why would that be? The BBC protecting Ed Balls from scrutiny.

The BBC hide away on their Business Pages, with no link from the front news page, the news that:

'Timothy Geithner backs George Osborne's spending cuts'

Of course being the BBC, as well as not mentioning the news on the front page, they also run it as a very short story with no mention of some key facts. Thus this line:

'He said Mr Osborne had been handed "problems not created by this government".'

A fuller quotation would run:

'What he did was a very remarkable thing. At a time when it was easier to make tough choices quickly, because they were not problems created by this Government, he locked his coalition and the Government into a set of reforms that were very good.'

As The Telegraph report.

Likewise the BBC manage:

'...Mr Geithner said the "light-touch approach to financial regulation" which was "designed consciously to pull financial activity from New York, and from Frankfurt and Paris to London" was a "deeply costly strategy for financial regulation".'

Would the BBC care to explain who devised this 'light-touch regulation', who boasted of their 'light-touch regulation'?
Well here's Ed Balls from 2006, transcript on his website:

' In my first speech as City Minister at Bloomberg in London, I argued that London’s success has been based on three great strengths – the skills, expertise and flexibility of the workforce; a clear commitment to global, open and competitive markets; and light-touch principle-based regulation…

Most recently in this decade we have been determined to respond to events and new challenges and enhance London’s global standing and light touch regulation…

Today our system of light-touch and risk-based regulation is regularly cited – alongside the City’s internationalism and the skills of those who work here – as one of our chief attractions. It has provided us with a huge competitive advantage and is regarded as the best in the world…

The Government’s interest in this area is specific and clear: to safeguard the light touch and proportionate regulatory regime that has made London a magnet for international business…

We must ensure that all new regulations are implemented in a sensitive and light touch manner…

...

[The Labour government] will outlaw the imposition of any rules that might endanger the light touch, risk based regulatory regime that underpins London’s success.'

Would the BBC not like to inform its paying customers who was in proudly in favour of 'light touch regulations'?

Oddly bearing in mind the 2006 speech quoted from above, during Conference Season 2008 Martin Kettle in The Guardian still managed to report with a straight face that:

'He is also driving the dominant Brownite line of the week – that you have to be tough to tame the financial markets. But while Brown hesitates to abandon his own long familiar commitment to light-touch regulation, and Alistair Darling in his conference speech argued for neither light nor heavy but effective regulation, Balls was reliably reported to have told friends on Sunday night that "I have never believed in light touch regulation." It's a very significant shift of pitch, and it tells you the sort of stance that Balls might adopt in a contest with the – on this issue – more cautious Miliband.'

So if Martin Kettle is correct, then in 2008 Ed Balls was claiming "I have never believed in light touch regulation", whilst in 2006 he was stating his support for "a clear commitment... light-touch principle-based regulation". Which statement is true Ed Balls? Maybe George Osborne could ask him at the next Treasury Questions, I am sure Ed Balls will want to set the record straight.