Did Ed Balls lie on the BBC in 2011?

Judge for yourself, first an interview with Andrew Neil for the BBC's Daily Politics


And then with Adam Boulton on Sky

I leave you to draw your own conclusions as to the veracity of Ed Balls's line of argument but just look at Ed Balls' staring eyes in the last part of the Sky video; is Ed 'Blinky' Balls trying desperately not to blink?

Writing of Ed Balls's relationship with the truth reminded me of a piece I wrote in 2011. Here's a long extract that you might find interesting (where did I find the time to write such long pieces as recently as 2011?):

'... the documents published overnight in The Telegraph that Ed Balls was a prime mover in the Gordon Brown campaign to replace Tony Blair as Labour leader and Prime Minister are quite shocking. Shocking but not surprising as I think we all knew where Ed Balls' loyalties lay and what he and his fellow conspirators were up to. However there was never any solid proof and so Ed Balls could use 'plausible deniability' tactics; no longer!

The plot, codenamed Project Volvo, was launched as London was under attack from Islamic terrorists in the 7/7 attacks; great timing?

It is also being reported that Mr Brown ordered Mr Balls to take a 'brutal' approach to cleanse the Labour Party of Mr Blair's influence.

If this subject interests you and it should, then The Telegraph is a must read to today as it lays out for us what Ed Balls was up to and what his priorities were during some difficult days during the last Labour government.

This is the document index

Do read through the documents they are fascinating, here's some of what The Telegraph discovered:
Here The Telegraph report on who Ed Balls' co-conspirators were and there are some familiar names (my emphasis):

'Around him, Mr Brown formed his “small group” of six that would win him the job of prime minister. Other members included Ed Miliband, now Labour leader, and Douglas Alexander, the current shadow foreign secretary. The team was completed by Sue Nye, another long-term aide; Spencer Livermore, who became Mr Brown’s director of political strategy in No 10; and Ian Austin, a former spin doctor who became an MP in 2005.

In July 2005, each of the members of the “small group” was given responsibility for different parts of the campaign.

Ms Nye, who became Baroness Nye last year, was in charge of recruiting business leaders and managing the relationship with the Parliamentary Labour Party, alongside Mr Brown. Tom Watson, Dawn Primarolo and Ann Keen were seen as key supporters in the Commons, as was Nick Brown, who was later Chief Whip.

Mrs Keen, who lost her seat last year, was Mr Brown’s ministerial aide, while Miss Primarolo was a long-serving Treasury minister. Mr Watson was one of several junior ministers who were to resign in 2006, forcing Mr Blair to tell the country he would be gone within a year.

Several figures were considered for managing the business aspects of the coup. Shriti Vadera, a former UBS banker who became a minister in 2007, was a key Treasury aide with excellent City links.

Alan Parker, the founder and chairman of the Brunswick Group PR company, was named as an adviser on image issues.

An unexpected name is that of Louis Susman, whom Barack Obama appointed as US Ambassador to Britain in 2009. He is mentioned in relation to fund-raising, though it is not clear what role he ever played, if any, in the plot.

Mr Miliband was in charge of developing policy, with the MP Michael Wills, later justice minister, and the Brown adviser Neal Lawson. Wilf Stevenson, who also became a peer last year, led the Smith Institute, the think tank where Brownite theories and concepts were developed.

Stewart Wood, a senior adviser to Mr Brown and a fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, was also handed policy matters. He has also been ennobled. Eric Salama is another key figure. Mr Salama is the chief executive of Kantar, part of the global communications company WPP, and was considered for a senior policy role.
Mr Livermore handled Mr Brown’s image, to make him a plausible prime ministerial figure. MT Rainey, an advertising specialist, and the film director Anthony Minghella were also suggested.

American consultants Bob Shrum and Stan Greenberg were involved in polling on Mr Brown and Mr Blair’s strengths and weaknesses . Mr Austin was in charge of media strategy, dominated by the spin doctor Damian McBride.'

Here The Telegraph show the document showing Gordon Brown's demands for the transfer of power from Tony Blair to himself; nowhere is a democratic vote mentioned.

Here  The Telegraph show a presentation that includes this does list Gordon Brown’s 'weaknesses':

'Humourless, dour, moody, aggressive, unapproachable'

And that's from one of his supporters. It would be interesting why his supporters thought that someone 'moody, aggressive, unapproachable' would make a good Prime Minister. Maybe Ed Balls saw something of himself in the 'moody' and 'aggressive' descriptions?


Of course the release of this documents raises some very interesting questions for the Labour Party and for the wider British public. More of those questions in a moment, but it would be interesting to know how The Telegraph obtained these documents? I suppose one should ask whose interests are served by the release of these documents? It would be tempting to say the Conservatives but I think that their long-term interests are served by keeping the vile Ed Balls near the top of the Labour party. Ed Balls turns so many people off with his smirking, aggressive and repellent personality as showcased almost every time he is interviewed, even by a friendly BBC interviewer. Maybe the leak came from a disgruntled Blairite, maybe someone (or a supporter of someone) who has recently lost out to Ed Balls and/or another of Gordon Brown's inner circle (such as Ed Miliband). Now who might fit that description? 

Leaving that aside, the release of these documents leaves the Labour party having to face the facts that the people who plotted to depose their party leader (the man who won them three general elections) and the people who denied so plotting, are now at the very top of their party. What sort of loyalty can the likes of Ed Miliband, Ed Balls and Douglas Alexander expect now that their past actions have been so exposed? Also I wonder how other figures in the Labour party feel now that they know for certain that Ed Balls is a plotter, who might he plot against next?


Meanwhile one Telegraph commentator seems to have rowed back from describing Ed Miliband in rather derogatory terms. Toby Young's piece is entitled 'The Telegraph's scoop will cut short Ed Miliband's time as Labour leader' but its URL indicates that another earlier title may have been dropped - 'http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tobyyoung/100091597/telegraphs-extraordinary-scoop-is-proof-that-ed-miliband-is-gordon-browns-bch' I presume that last word was 'bitch'...


The BBC could not really ignore this story but they are downplaying it. There is just one article that I can find on it and that is already just the number 5 story on the front page. The coverage is sparse and ignores some of the more explosive revelations.The story does not even feature in the BBC's top stories on the Radio 4 08:30 news bulletin, anyone would think they were trying to downplay the story; I wonder why?

I also like the whining comment at the end of The Guardian's piece about the leak investigation:

'The investigation will raise questions about whether the new government was involved in the leaking of the papers.'

Yes that's the real story!


One fact that seems to be garnering too little interest is that Ed Balls has now been proved to be a liar. Ed Balls has denied several times that there was a plot to overthrow Tony Blair, he has indeed previously insisted he had "never ever" been involved in attempts to undermine colleagues. take a read of this Guardian piece from July 2010 about Ed Balls' BBC interview:

'Ed Balls, a Labour leadership contender and a close ally of Gordon Brown, today rejected suggestions that he took part in an "insurgency" against Tony Blair and insisted the differences between the two men amounted only to "creative tensions".

In a fractious interview on the BBC, he dismissed as "total, absolute nonsense" any idea that he had been party to a coup against Blair in 2006, which led to him announcing his intention to quit the following year.

...

He said: "I was the chief economic adviser to the Treasury. I was never involved in an insurgency, I was very close to Gordon Brown but I also saw Tony Blair very regularly, but we had our disagreements."'

In the light of the recently released documents why should anyone trust a word Ed Balls says again?'

Did you spot some of the names in that article? Not just Ed 'Blinky' Balls but Ed 'Junior' Miliband, Douglas Alexander, and the ever delightful pair of Tom Watson & Damian McBride. It's odd how this Telegraph story disappeared so quickly from the media and how the BBC managed to minimise any coverage at the time. I just thought you might like to be reminded of the story...

Ed Miliband must be reassured

Peter Madelson in November:

“I was loyal to Gordon Brown who I didn’t agree with entirely and I will be loyal to Ed Miliband.”

That's reasuring...

Why did nobody stop Gordon Brown?

If you read only one article day read John Rentoul's piece in todays Independent, here's an extract:

'The third reaction on reading Alistair Darling's memoir, after enjoying the quality of the writing and the nicely understated humour, is to wonder again how Gordon Brown was ever allowed to be Prime Minister.

Of course, we knew the main points of the story at the time. It was no secret that Brown resented Tony Blair's seizure of the Labour leadership in 1994, or that Brown was impatient to succeed him from 2004, or that towards the end there were policy differences between them. It became known, especially during Brown's three years as Prime Minister, that he could be rude, difficult and bad-tempered.
Related articles

With each successive diary and memoir, though, our knowledge of Brown's unreasonableness advanced another notch. Each advance was surprising, but small, and produced diminishing returns of outrage, so it was easy to lose sight of how far we had come. Now we have to look back and conclude that his behaviour should have ruled him out of high office.

...

The third volume of Campbell's "complete" Diaries, published in July, recounted one appalling example of Brown's conduct after another – and still only took us to 2001, four years into Blair's 10-year stint at the top. Because there were so many,and because we had already got the basic idea – Brown was a monster – much of it went unreported. Some of the accounts of Brown being monosyllabic or childishly unhelpful when asked direct questions in meetings are pure John Cleese: so embarrassing they are not funny. Campbell tells of a discussion about Europe in 2000, when Peter Mandelson said that "we had to be more positive" and "Gordon literally turned away to look at the wall".

...

Then there are the questions for others in the Labour Party: How did Brown succeed unopposed to the leadership? And why did the party not change leader before the 2010 election? We do not need Darling's book to tell us that the hopes many in the party had that Brown would operate differently once he was in the top job were quickly dashed – although this weekend's revelations add brushstroke detail and depth to the picture.

John McTernan, who had been Blair's political adviser and who worked at the Scotland Office until last year, tells how Brown replicated his own broken relationship with Blair in his dealings with his own Chancellor. Brown wanted the 2010 election to be about "cuts versus investment". In one meeting of advisers from Nos 10 and 11, McTernan asked: "Surely the real choice is between our cuts and theirs?" He wrote in The Scotsman last week: "This was dismissed, but later No 10 issued an edict to Darling's staff. While they hadn't supported my line, they had rolled their eyes while No 10 staffers were talking."

Darling, too, managed to replicate one important feature of the dysfunctional relationship with No 10 of his predecessor, which was that he made it hard for the Prime Minister to sack him. Thus he was able to see off Brown's feeble attempt to appoint Ed Balls as chancellor, which has already been recounted by Peter Mandelson in his memoir – Brown asked Mandelson to find out how Darling would react to the possibility.

...

The portrait of Gordon Brown that emerges from the memoirs and diaries is so bad that it can't all be his fault. Blair, Campbell, Mandelson and Darling stopped short of doing something to stop Brown when they had the chance. David Miliband and Alan Johnson, who never said a bad word about Brown but who could have sought the top job, chose not to do so. In my view, either or both should have done.

No doubt Alistair Darling thinks he could have done better as Labour leader at the last election, and I would agree with that too. But none of them did what had to be done, so it is not much use arguing now over who was right and who was wrong.'

The Labour party was full of cowards who feared Gordon Brown and his attack dogs more than they feared what he could do to the Labour party and the Country. Well cowards; thanks a lot!

The one-hundred and thirty eighth weekly "No shit, Sherlock" award

This week's award is presented jointly to The Mail, Alastair Campbell and Tony Blair for combining to produce this line in today's Mail:

'Now, the latest volumes of Alastair Campbell’s diaries reveal that Mr Blair repeatedly told him that Mr Balls, now shadow Chancellor and then Mr Brown’s senior advisor, was a ‘highly disruptive influence’.

My cry of 'Ed Balls - a "highly disruptive influence" - "No Shit, Sherlock"' is only tempered by the fact that I usually take any statements made by Alastair Campbell and/or Tony Blair with more than a normal sized pinch of salt.

Labour MP John Cruddas urged David Miliband regarding Ed ‘Why don’t you f*****g punch him? That’s what I’d do.’

It seems that war has been declared by some followers of David Miliband as rumours abound that the anti-Ed Balls and anti-Ed Miliband stories that have emerged over the past few days are coming from Labour sources. After the past few days of Telegraph revelations, today other papers seem to have been fed stories. Take your pick from The Sunday Times, The Observer, The Independent (none of which are Conservative papers by any means) and The Mail.

The quotation above is from The Mail whose article will not make happy reading for Ed Miliband, should he ever read The Mail that is...

'The full extent of the bitter feud between Ed Miliband and his brother David is exposed for the first time today, as Labour MPs claim that powerful allies of David Miliband have launched a plot to oust the Opposition leader.

The Mail on Sunday today publishes extracts from a new book in which ex-Foreign Secretary Mr Miliband effectively accuses his ‘ruthless’ younger brother of lying about the way he stole the Labour crown from him.

Such is the bad blood between the two men that they are even at war over when the ‘Biblical act of fratricide’ – the moment Ed told David he was going to run – took place. Ed says he went to his brother’s home and told him to his face. Defiant David says no such meeting ever took place.

The authors, two of Britain’s leading Labour-supporting journalists, say that contrary to Ed’s claim that he made a last-minute decision to run for the leadership, he spent years plotting behind his brother’s back to beat him. And the book refers to reports that he tricked David into not standing against Gordon Brown before the 2010 General Election to boost his own chances later.

This sparked a separate schism between Ed and David’s respective wives, Justine Thornton and Louise Shackelton. The book says Louise has been ‘nasty’ to Justine and has ‘cut Ed dead’.

'Somebody seems to have it in for the two Eds, now how do we cuts the list down to a manageable number?

David Miliband understood the truth about deficit reduction unlike the two Eds

The Telegraph have a fascianting article based on a leak of David Miliband's leaked labour leadership speech, a speech he never gave. The apearance of this along with the recent Ed Balls leaks leads me to believe that this is not a clever Conservative attack on Ed Balls, something I doubt the Conservative leadership could organise anyway, but an attack by Labour Blairites on the two Eds.

Here's part of The Telegraph's article:

'A leaked copy of the victory speech Mr Miliband planned to deliver last September showed that he wanted to tell his party it had to promise “lean government” and could not be “in denial” about the deficit.

The speech was never given because the leadership was won by his brother, Ed Miliband, who has since taken a different line on the economy, opposing the Coalition’s plans for gdp100 billion of public spending cuts.

The publication of his speech means David Miliband, an ally of Tony Blair, joins the list of Labour figures opposed to Ed Miliband’s economic policy, a list that also includes Alistair Darling, the former chancellor.

Had he won, David Miliband planned to tell Labour that the deficit “is the biggest argument in politics, and the biggest danger for us. George Osborne (the Chancellor) says we are in denial about the deficit. Because he wants us to be. So let’s not be. It is a test.”

Labour would only regain power when voters believed it was prepared to tackle public spending, David Miliband wanted to say. '

Is motley a strong enough word to describe this lot?

So Labour MPs have voted for the members of the shadow cabinet and Ed Miliband has placed these people in the positions that best suit their talents. There being no Ministry of Bullying, Ed Balls has been made Shadow Home Secretary. There being no Ministry of Feminist claptrap, Harriet Harman becomes Shadow Secretary of State for International Development. You get the idea...

What is also noticeable is that Ed Miliband has already had to go outside of the elected cabinet to find someone Welsh to make Secretary of State for Wales and he's plumped for a member of his 'new generation' - Peter Hain. Likewise for Secretary of State for Northern Irealand he's had to bring in the Labour MP who has his own butler - Shaun Woodward.

The surprise is that the new Chancellor of the Exchequer is Alan Johnson. So whereas Alistair Darling had to work whilst knowing that Ed Balls wanted his job, Alan Johnson will have to work knowing that both Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper are waiting in the wings.

The most worrying appointment though is that of Sadiq Khan, Ed Miliband's campaign manager in the leadership election, who is rewarded with the post of shadow Lord Chancellor and justice secretary. This is a man who has represented Supt Ali Dizaei and Louis Farakhan, as well as Babar Ahmad. Sadiq Khan is aan who has had at least two run-ins with the House of Commons over his use of expenses for electioneering rather than official parliamentary business. Well I suppose he has experience of legal matters.


Here's the complete list, as per the BBC:

Leader of the Opposition: Ed Miliband

Deputy Leader and Shadow Secretary of State for International Development: Harriet Harman

Shadow Chancellor: Alan Johnson

Shadow Foreign Secretary and Minister for Women and Equalities: Yvette Cooper

Shadow Home Secretary: Ed Balls

Chief Whip: Rosie Winterton

Shadow Education Secretary: Andy Burnham

Shadow Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary (with responsibility for political and constitutional reform): Sadiq Khan

Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary: Douglas Alexander

Shadow Business Secretary: John Denham

Shadow Health Secretary: John Healey

Shadow Secretary Communities and Local Government Secretary: Caroline Flint

Shadow Defence Secretary: Jim Murphy

Shadow Energy and Climate Change Secretary: Meg Hillier

Shadow Commons Leader: Hilary Benn

Shadow Transport Secretary: Maria Eagle

Shadow Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Secretary: Mary Creagh

Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury: Angela Eagle

Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary: Shaun Woodward

Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland: Ann McKechin

Shadow Welsh Secretary: Peter Hain

Shadow Culture, Media and Sport Secretary: Ivan Lewis

Shadow Lords Leader: Baroness Royall of Blaisdon

Shadow Olympics Minister: Tessa Jowell

Shadow Cabinet Office Minister: Liam Byrne

Lords Chief Whip: Lord Bassam of Brighton

Shadow Attorney-General: Baroness Scotland

Do note that of the 19 elected by the Labour party members, all served in Gordon Brown's last lamentable Labour Government. 14 of them were MPs at the time of the Iraq war vote, 12 voting to support the military action. I believe all 19 voted for the introduction of ID cards.

Ed Miliband promised a new generation of leadership and a break with the last Labour government so I wonder how he and the BBC will spin that as well as the above, present in his shadow cabinet are as well as himself who wrote the 2010 manifesto, Douglas Alexander who was the labour party's election co-ordinator.

Also note that as Toby Young writes:

'Of the 19 people elected, eight went to fee-paying schools and two went to grammars. Of the other three people in the Shadow Cabinet, two were educated privately and one at a grammar. In other words, a majority did not go to comprehensives. If you include Ed Miliband, six members of Labour's front bench team did PPE at Oxford and nine went to either Oxford or Cambridge. So much for social diversity.'

Is this significant?

The BBC list the 'winning' candidates in the Labour shadow elections and very helpfully that put it in alphabvetical order:

'The full list of successful candidates is:

Douglas Alexander - 160 votes

Ed Balls - 179 votes

Hilary Benn - 128 votes

Andy Burnham - 165 votes

Liam Byrne - 100 votes

Yvette Cooper - 232 votes

Mary Creagh - 119 votes

John Denham - 129 votes

Angela Eagle - 165 votes

Maria Eagle - 107 votes

Caroline Flint - 139 votes

John Healey - 192 votes

Meg Hillier - 106 votes

Alan Johnson - 163 votes

Tessa Jowell - 152 votes

Sadiq Khan - 128 votes

Ivan Lewis - 104 votes

Ann McKechin - 117 votes

Jim Murphy - 160 votes'

Is is significant that all have surnames that start with a letter in the first half of the alphabet?


Crap, I was not the first to notice, I see that Mary Anne Sieghart commented an hour ago; great minds?

Hazel Blears "speaking from her heart"

Did Hazel Blears lie on, and to, the BBC? Will any other BBC programme other than Andrew Neil's report this? Will we see this lie (if lie it be) reported on the BBC website? Because you can be sure that such a 'misspeak' by a Conservative ex-Minister would be headline news. Remember Teresa May's 'Nasty Party' comment and how often that was played and recalled over the years, something tells me Hazel Blears' remark will be forgotten (by the BBC) by the weekend.




Thanks to Guido Fawkes for the spot.

No love lost amongst the Labour ferrets

David has a hissy fit at Harriet, Harriet just wants to ingratiate herself with the new leader. David leaves the Labour Conference early but doesn't announce he won't be standing for the Shadow Cabinet, the BBC can talk of little else. Exciting isn't it?

"Not for a long time yet"

Oh really Ed Miliband?

From 1:23...

Andrew Neil got it spot on about Ed Miliband

"You're the second preference candidate in this election, how does it feel to be regarded as most folks' second best? ... If you win at all it'll be on second preferences"

Do watch the whole video and especially Ed Miliband's body language; I think there's a bully just waiting to emerge and now he's elected...

Ed Miliband on this blog

No I haven't got an intreview with Ed Miliband, I think I may be insufficiently on message for Ed, but I thought I would look back at my previous postings about ed Miliband.

26 January 2008 - 'Democracy Gordon Brown style'

'What I find interesting in this video is quite how smug and self-assured Ed Miliband is, he makes David Miliabnd look almost human. It is also quite clear that Ed Miliband has not read the Lisbon Treaty. Hilary Benn states that "... it was very different in character... it was, that's my view and we live in a democracy. OK" Sunday lunch at the Benn family house must be fun.

...

Ed Miliband's promise of a "vigorous debate" looks like bullshit to me.'

June 20008 - 'An extremely large, extremely powerful idiot'

'A good letter that makes some serious points but I must take exception with one part of the letter:

"we've taken the brightest and best, the finest intellects of our age, put them in a room together and created an extremely large, extremely powerful idiot.


"brightest and best"? In no particular order I give you for your consideration - Geoff Hoon, Des Browne, Yvette Cooper, Ed Balls, Ed Miliband, Harriett Harman, Hilary Ben, David Miliband, Alistair Darling, Gordon Brown. Brightest and best, really? Has the UK sunk that low?'

31 July 2008 - 'Which is the least trustworthy?'

'David Miliband or Ed Miliband, tough choice isn't it? You can also "enjoy" the equally viable Hilary Benn.

I know I have posted this video before but since David Miliband is accused of wanting to be our Prime Minister, I think it only right that the public see him in all his glory. '

5 October 2008 - 'Climate Change, the Labour government and the BBC'

'I am getting really angry now, the moron Brown has decided to promote the oleaginous Ed Miliband to head a new department of Energy and Climate Change. This probably means the end of any remnant of sensible debate over energy provision in the UK and the last nail in the coffin of any pretence of debate over the matter of Climate Change. The BBC have covered the story with the headline "Greens welcome new climate dept" and comments from Green groups but nary a word from anyone who knows the truth about Climate Change. '

16 October 2008 - 'My advice to you all...'

'My advice to you all is to BUY A GENERATOR. As our Climate Change and Energy Secretary, Ed Miliband, has committed the UK to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by middle of this century.

To paraphrase Sir Edward Grey "The lamps will be going out all over Britain; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime."

This government's eco-stupidity seems to know no bounds, unless this is just another piece of scorched earth politics.'

25 Decembefr 2008 - 'Bloody Victoria Derbyshire again'

'Ed Milliband is allowed to spout the usual highly selective statistics and avoid answering tough questions, whilst Victoria Derbyshire is as usual too weak an interviewer to try and get him to answer the questions.

However at around 09:46 for a few minutes even the vile VD realises that Ed Milliband is not answering questions about public sector pay rises and election bribes and pushes a bit harder than I would expect her too. Maybe listening to Ed Milliband made even her realise that this Labour government are not all they say they are.'

Peter Lilley wants an answer from Ed Miliband - somehow I doubt he'll get a meaningful one'

'"Dear Secretary of State

You recently slipped out, without notifying Parliament, a massive revision of the estimated costs and benefits of the Climate Change Act.

I hope that on consideration, you will agree that changes amounting to nearly £1 trillion require both discussion in, and explanation to, Parliament. This is particularly important given the extraordinary way the government treated its own original estimates of the costs and benefits of the Climate Change Bill during the Bill’s passage through Parliament.

You will recall that your original estimates of costs and benefits of the Climate Change Bill showed that its potential costs (1) at some £205 billion were almost twice the maximum benefits of £110 billion. This was embarrassing for you because the reason governments are required to publish an Impact Assessment giving estimates of costs and benefits of any Bill is to enable Parliament to “determine whether the benefits justify the costs” (2)...'

8 June 2009 - 'The Cabinet and their pasts'

'Ed Miliband - "a Labour party researcher and rose to become one of then Chancellor Gordon Brown's confidantes and chairman of HM Treasury's Council of Economic Advisers. Miliband was elected Labour Member of Parliament for the South Yorkshire constituency of Doncaster North in the 2005 general election. "'

13 September 2009 - '"There's no danger of power cuts in the next decade"'

'"There's no danger of power cuts in the next decade."

So apparently said Ed Miliband today on the Andrew Marr show. Would you care for a small wager Ed? '

26 September 2009 - 'Ministers back PM pre-Conference'

'So the only Ministers prepared to back Gordon Brown in public seem to be his closest ally Ed Balls, one of the few ministers who those who know of him detest as much as Gordon Brown and Peter Mandelson, the living piece of slime that is Ed Miliband and Gordon Brown's general election campaign manager Douglas Alexander - impressive?'

14 September 2009 - 'Climate Change - Story 2'

'

"Ed Miliband, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, said: “The overwhelming body of scientific information is stacked up against the deniers and shows us that climate change is man-made and is happening now. We know that we still have a way to go in informing people about climate change and that is why we make no apologies about pushing forward with our new Act on CO2 campaign.” "

"deniers" that is such a scary word as it hints at future action to stop "deniers" from being able to deny the truth of climate change. Are we being lined up for a return to the Spanish Inquisition? Where denial of the given truth is just not allowed. Of course Ed Miliband makes no apologies, he's a Labour minister and they don't need to apologise for anything. I presume that the junior, but slimier, Miliband is positioning himself for a role in some supranational eco-body post the general election; whatever happens the earning power of these power crazed loons must not be affected. '

15 December 2009 - 'Ed Miliband is innumerate' '

"The hon. Gentleman knows that we have published our own home energy efficiency plan for 700 million households to be insulated by 2020 and we have said that we will pilot it in the low-carbon transition plan, which we will be announcing shortly. The problem with the hon. Gentleman's position is that he says that we can give £6,500 to everybody on day one. I do not know how he will pay for every household to have that. I asked him in my speech to clarify-perhaps he can advise us now-how he will pay for that £6,500 on day one."

700 million households? Either there is more immigration than even Migration Watch think might be possible or Ed Miliband has no idea what he is saying. Bear in mind that Hansard is the official record and if Ed Miliband (or an official) had gone to Hansard and said I said the wrong figure I believe they would have let him change it for the record. Maybe Ed Miliband and his team just don't care about the official record or the truth; or more likely they know that this figure is no more ridiculous than many other figures published by this Labour government. As I blogged the other day

"But actually, he thought as he re-adjusted the Ministry of Plenty's figures, it was not even forgery. It was merely the substitution of one piece of nonsense for another. Most of the material that you were dealing with had no connexion with anything in the real world, not even the kind of connexion that is contained in a direct lie. Statistics were just as much a fantasy in their original version as in their rectified version. A great deal of the time you were expected to make them up out of your head. For example, the Ministry of Plenty's forecast had estimated the output of boots for the quarter at one-hundred-and-forty-five million pairs. The actual output was given as sixty-two millions. Winston, however, in rewriting the forecast, marked the figure down to fifty-seven millions, so as to allow for the usual claim that the quota had been overfulfilled. In any case, sixty-two millions was no nearer the truth than fifty-seven millions, or than one-hundred-and-forty-five millions. Very likely no boots had been produced at all. Likelier still, nobody knew how many had been produced, much less cared. All one knew was that every quarter astronomical numbers of boots were produced on paper, while perhaps half the population of Oceania went barefoot. And so it was with every class of recorded fact, great or small. Everything faded away into a shadow-world in which, finally, even the date of the year had become uncertain."

That's from 1984 and I know that resorting to 1984 parallels is somewhat trite, but with this Labour government it is just so perfect.'

2 February 2010 - 'The return of Azad Ali

'I see that Azad Ali is back in the news. It seems that the simply delightful civil servant who used his personal website to justify the killing of British troops in Iraq appeared at the "Progressive London" conference organised by Ken Livingstone along with Harriet Harman and Ed Miliband. So much for community cohesion or are this labour government so desperate for votes that they are willing to cosy up to people such as Azad Ali? '

14 March 2010 - 'not supported by solid science'

'Climate Change of course; the story is in The Times and is that

"TWO government advertisements that use nursery rhymes to warn people of the dangers of climate change have been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for exaggerating the potential harm.

The adverts, commissioned by Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, used the rhymes to suggest that Britain faces an inevitable increase in storms, floods and heat waves unless greenhouse gas emissions are brought under control.

The ASA has ruled that the claims made in the newspaper adverts were not supported by solid science and has told the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) that they should not be published again."

The article also contains this interesting section that I think needs wider dissemination (my emphasis):

"The rulings will be an embarrassment for Miliband, who has tried to portray his policies as firmly science-based. He had commissioned two posters, four press advertisements and a short film for television and cinema, which started appearing in October last year in the run-up to the Copenhagen climate talks.

They attracted 939 complaints — more than the ASA received for any advertisement last year. The deluge posed problems for the ASA, which is not a scientific body, so it decided to compare the text of Miliband’s adverts with the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Based on that comparison, it ruled that two of the DECC’s adverts had broken the advertising code on three counts: substantiation, truthfulness and environmental claims."

So even when compared to the increasingly discredited IPCC report, Ed Miliband's department's claims were found to have broken the advertising code "on three counts: substantiation, truthfulness and environmental claims". When will the 'warmists' stop lying to us? '

5 May 2010 - 'Who should I vote for

'More generally vote anything but Labour, as the first priority is to rid this country of Gordon Brown, Peter Mandelson, Ed Balls, Harriet Harman, Jack Straw et al. But before you vote for any party other than the Conservatives, remember that any result other than a Conservative majority government risks a Labour Prime Minister and it is likely to be one of those I mentioned above or possibly worse a smug David Miliband or an even smugger Ed Miliband. '

20 June 2010 - 'Newsnight Labour leadership debate

'Has Ed Miliband developed a speech impediment or has he always had a slightly camp lithp? Also has he put on weight and why the ... odd ... pauses?

...

Ed Miliband saying we should look forward and not discuss the past reminds me of a school swot whining "It's not fair".'

29 August 2010 - 'Unbelievable comment of the day - 'Tories believe that Ed Miliband is an intellectual heavyweight'

'Yesterday's Guardian contained a hysterical piece by Nicholas Watt, their chief political correspondent. It has many unbelievable lines, here's a few:

'David Cameron believes David Miliband has a better chance than his brother Ed of reaching out to middle Britain Photograph: David Miliband poses the greatest threat to the Conservative party of all the candidates in the Labour leadership contest, David Cameron has said in private remarks that could change the dynamic of the campaign just days before millions of ballot papers are posted.

...

A well-placed source told the Guardian: "David Cameron said the candidate he hoped for was Ed Miliband, and the candidate he most feared was David Miliband."

Ed Miliband, who is thought to be slightly behind his brother in first preference votes, but who hopes second choice votes will propel him to victory, is likely to be irritated by Cameron's remarks, which echo those of supporters of Tony Blair: his backers believe that his elder brother is being supported by what they describe as the "Blair machinery".

Tory high command believes David Miliband is flawed and lacks the easy manner of Tony Blair, who was regarded by Cameron and George Osborne as unbeatable. But Downing Street believes that the senior Miliband, who this week told the Labour party to abandon its "comfort zone", stands the best chance of reaching the sort of voters wooed by Blair.

Tories believe that Ed Miliband is an intellectual heavyweight, but showed the influence of his mentor, Gordon Brown, this week when he in effect attacked his brother with a warning about remaining in the "New Labour comfort zone".'

Hmmm might it be possible that this leak is designed to confuse the Labour leadership election.


Meanwhile in Ed Miliband related news, I read that:

'One of the country’s biggest unions last night threatend to withdraw funding from the Labour party unless Ed Miliband is elected as leader next month.

Paul Kenny, the General Secretary of the GMB union, said other unions will follow suit if David Miliband or Ed Balls were chosen to succeed Gordon Brown.

The warning, which senior Shadow Cabinet members will view as blackmail, came a week after Lord Prescott revealed that Labour were 'on the verge of bankruptcy'.

He said that the party was bring kept alive by 'trade union contributions, high-value donations and the goodwill of the Co-op bank'.

Asked by The Times if his union would withdraw funding from Labour if Ed Miliband did not win, Mr Kenny said: 'If the new leader offers us more of the same, many unions — including our own — would have to consider where we are at.

'Ed Balls and David Miliband represent where we’ve been. They are not without talent. I would not rubbish them. But if the direction of the party went off chasing some right-of-centre ground . . .'

He added: 'Ed Miliband is not ashamed of Labour’s core values. It’s not about a big society. It’s about a fair society.''

Hmmm, 'Ed Balls and David Miliband represent where we’ve been'. That's odd I could have sworn that Ed Miliband served in the last Labour cabinet and wrote a large part of the 2010 Labour manifesto that lead to a Labour defeat. Am I wrong?

In even more important news, I read in The Mirror that: Lily Allen has tweeted

'Why did David Miliband cross the road? To get to the middle. Vote Ed.'

So Lily Allen is on Ed Miliband, hmmm.

There are more postings on Ed Miliband on this blog, take a look.

David Miliband is not taking defeat well

Thanks to James1070 for the spot.

That was resounding

Round 1: David Miliband 37.78%, Ed Miliband 34.33% Diane Abbott eliminated
Round 2: David Miliband 38.89%, Ed Miliband 37.47%. Andy Burnham eliminated
Round 3: David Miliband 42.72%, Ed Miliband 41.26%, Ed Balls eliminated
Round 4: David Miliband 49.35%, Ed Miliband 50.65%. Ed Miliband wins.

So Ed Miliband wins the Labour leadership, beating his elder brother David, thanks to second preferences. On first preferences David beat Ed by 3.35%. Diane Abbott's votes went to Ed 3.14% and David 1.11%, Andy Burnham's votes split almost eavenly to David 3.83% and Ed 3.79% and Ed Balls's votes went to Ed 9.39% and to David 6.63%. So on a first past the post basis David Moribund would have won the Labour leadership but thanks to the second preferences of those consensual figures Dianne Abbot and Ed Balls, Ed Miliband emerges victorious.

I wonder if David Miliband is now regretting assisting Diane Abbot to get the required nominations to get through to the final stage?

It is odd how in leadership elections for the main opposition party the early favourite keeps on losing. This time Ed Miliband beats David Miliband. In the last three Conservative leadership elections (going backwards in time) David Cameron defeated David Davis, Ian Duncan Smith defeated Ken Clarke and William Hague defeated Kenneth Clarke & Michael Howard. Remember that Michael Howard won the Conservative leadership in 2003 unopposed, just as Gordon Brown did in 2007.

Is it Ed and if so what should the hand-signal be?

Guido fawkes is reporting that it looks Ed Miliband is going to defeat his brother and become leader of the Labour party on Saturday. Bearing in mind this FT article, what hand signal should each brother use to signify they had one? A bana shape for David miliband obviously, for Ed how about this...




Interestingly if you Google 'wanker' and look at images, the fourth returned image is this...

Is there something about senior labour politicians?

Why do we take political memoirs at face value?

Lots of people are in a bit of a tizz this morning because of what Tony Blair has said in his autobiography. I don't understand why; after all why should we believe he is telling the unvarnished truth? Do Tony Blair's memoirs report what actually happened, what he would have liked to have happened (knowing what he knows now), what he wants to believe happened (Tony Blair being able to convince himself of most things), what he wants other people to believe happened or what he wants other people to believe he believed happened?

Just as with Alastair Campbell & Peter Mandelson's books, why should anyone believe a word that Tony Blair says? All three are proven liars, so why should their books be any more truthful?

Interestingly, will any journalists be asking Peter Mandelson why he lied to the British public when he assured us that rumours of massive arguments between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were just media tittle-tattle?


From the time that I heard of Tony Blair lying about his stowing away on a plane from Newcastle to the Bahamas when he was 14, tricky as there were no such flights at that time, I had no faith in this man. I was therefore made exceedingly angry by the way the media, especially the BBC, repeated his claims of being a pretty straight guy.

Also remember Tony Blair's involvement with Bernie Ecclestone, the Hindujas and of course 'Weapons of Mass Destruction'. In the latter case, the security services told Tony Blair that intelligence about WMD was 'sporadic and patchy', 'little' and 'limited'; Tony Blair translated that to Parliament as 'extensive, detailed and authoritative'. Also remember Tony Blair writing to the Romanian government when Lakshmi Mittal was bidding to privatise the Romanian steel industry. Tony Blair wrote that 'I am particularly pleased it is a British company which is your partner.' At that time this British compnay was owned by an Indian citizen with holdings in the Dutch Antilles and of his 125,000 employees just 85 were in Britain. The fact that Laksjmi Mittal had donated £125,000 to the Labour Party is of course entirely coincidental to Tony Blair's support. We should also consider the cash for peerages affair but that would take too much time and I am running shot of bile.

Tony Blair on Gordon Brown

The BBC report on Tony Blair's autobiography and there are some interesting passages. The one that really caught my eye was this pertaining to how Tony Blair saw Gordon Brown as a potential Prime Minister:

'Mr Blair describes Mr Brown, who succeeded him in 10 Downing Street in 2007, as a "strange guy" and says his time as prime minister was "never going to work". But it would have been "well nigh impossible" to stop him taking over, he adds.'

"never going to work" - I don't remember Tony Blair warning the Labour party that having Gordon Brown as his successor as Prime Minister was "never going to work". I don't remember Tony Blair warning the country that having Gordon Brown as his successor as Prime Minister was "never going to work". In fact I seem to remember Tony Blair endorsing Gordon Brown as a "big clunking fist" and great Chancellor.

The Telegraph's coverage includes many interesting titbits but it was the following one that caught my eye:

'The former prime minister also disclosed that Mr Brown tried to blackmail him over the cash for honours scandal when it erupted in 2006 in a bid to make him ditch radical reforms to pensions drawn up by Lord Turner.

The then chancellor threatened to ensure that there was an official Labour investigation into the scandal, in which Mr Blair was accused of doling out seats in the House of Lords in exchange for sizeable donations to the party, unless the prime minister shelved the plans.

Mr Blair refused and within two days the then Labour Party treasurer gave a television interview which led to the threatened investigation.'

Does Tony Blair consider that he served the best interests of the United Kingdom by allowing a man capable of blackmail to become its Prime Minister?


I will not pay to read Tony Blair's autobiography and so will wait for a free copy to wend its way to me, however what I have read so far does nothing to change my view of this loathsome man.

The judgement of Ed Miliband

‘I loaded the bullets in, aimed, fired and shot down that Zionist’

The words of Ed Miliband's staff member Joseph 'Seph' Brown. The story is that in the wake of Operation Cast Lead, 'Seph' uttered the words ‘I loaded the bullets in, aimed, fired and shot down that Zionist’ while pretending to wield a machine gun during a protest. Apparently Jewish students were somewhat baffled at the sight of the LSE’s Anti-Racism Officer going all Rambo, felt intimidated and complained. Ed 'less Jewish than David'* Miliband's team are reported to have decided this was merely ‘silly behaviour’ and are keeping ‘Seph’ on the campaign in a ‘Web Ed’ capacity.

One of Ed Miliband's other advisers recently described Ed (off the record, of course) as being ‘less Jewish’ than his big brother.

I have never liked Ed Miliband, he always struck me as arrogant and smug, this makes me like him even less.

Don't forget that it was Ed Miliband who was reported in Hansard to have said "The hon. Gentleman knows that we have published our own home energy efficiency plan for 700 million households to be insulated by 2020" - 700 million households by 2020, what were Labour's real plans for immigration!

It was Ed Miliband who the BBC reported pre the 2009 Labour conference said Mr Brown was "the right leader".

It was Ed Miliband who in September 2009 told Andrew Marr that "There's no danger of power cuts in the next decade."

It was Ed Miliband who pushed the Climate Change Act through Parliament this landing the UK with a £1 trillion bill to no useful purpose.

And here is Ed Miliband in all his smug glory in 2008 managing to be even more shifty than David Miliband... and who quite clearly had not read the Lisbon Treaty

Who should I vote for in the Leabour leadership contest

According to Vote Match I match the candidates as follows:
David Miliband: 66%
Ed Miliband: 64%
Ed Balls: 61%
Diane Abbott: 35%
No score has been included for Andy Burnham because he did not send us his responses within the deadline.

I am interested that the difference in matching between David 'New Labour' Miliband amd Ed 'Lefty break with the past' Miliband is just 2 percentage points and that Ed 'Brownite loyalist' Balls is just another 3 percentage points. That seems rather odd to me. I am pleased to see that I have so little in common with Diane Abbott and Any Burnham is as disorganised a campaigner as he was a minister.

What I am sickened by is the websites invitation: 'David Miliband - Go Deeper'


Of course I don't have a vote for labour leader but if I managed to get one then I would vote for Diane Abbott as all of the others could do a less than disastrous job as party leader but she really couldn't!