People who rely on the BBC for their news just wouldn't understand Boris's reference to 'Ed Balls' and a 'Nazi uniform'

This Telegraph article contained a quotation from Boris Johnson

(Ed) “went into his stock rant about which schools everyone used to attend, and which university clubs they belonged to (a bit much, when you consider that both he and I were at the same prestigious forcing-ground of talent that was Primrose Hill Primary School, Camden; or when you consider that Ed Balls himself was a member of an Oxford drinking club so egregious that he once appeared in Nazi uniform).”

People who rely on the BBC for their news just wouldn't understand Boris's reference to Ed Balls' Nazi uniform as the BBC have carefully protected one of their allies in the Labour Party from embarrassment. I am less protective of the nasty bully that is Ed Balls, so here he is in his Nazi uniform...

Am I being hard on the BBC?

I don't believe so, in 2011 the BBC published this article under the headline 'How common is Nazi fancy dress?' which began

'A Conservative MP has apologised after reports he attended a stag party with Nazi overtones. But just how common is Nazi fancy dress?' 

No mention of Ed Balls in that article let alone a photo.


Then there was this article from 2008 which allowed Ed Balls the then Labour Education Secretary to indulge in mock outrage

'over Conservative claims that Labour had not lived up to a promise of free educational visits to Auschwitz concentration camp.

The Conservatives included the Labour pledge in a list of 26 "gimmicks" it said the government failed to deliver.'

Schools Secretary Ed Balls said: "Anyone who has seen the horrors of Auschwitz at first-hand knows what a life-changing experience it is."


He's absolutely right, so what changed in Ed Balls' life from when he dressed as a Nazi when at University?

Had Ed Balls not heard of the holocaust when at university? If he had then why did he think dressing as a Nazi was fun or appropriate? Surely someone studying Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Keble College Oxford, indeed going on to get a First, would have had some knowledge of the true nature of Nazism and what that uniform represents.