Eddie asked Balls a simple enough question, which of Gordon Brown's policies did he disagree with. After much pausing, dithering and hesitating he finally tried to offer some nuance about the Iraq war but Mair pressed him on specific policy issues. Balls could not come up with any.
This underlines the problem with candidates such as Ed Balls and David Miliband who are so closely associated with the government that was recently turfed out of office and is essentially discredited by the electorate now. How can they set out a distinctive vision that responds to the fact that the electorate has rejected their recent government programme but that does not sound like they are repudiating policies that just two weeks ago they were campaigning for? So far all we seem to have heard is wishy washy stuff about "listening" to the voters. Were they not listening before then?
The candidates in this position need to find a better way of responding to these sorts of questions and quickly. Otherwise their proximity to the heart of the previous government will fast be exposed as a reason not to vote for them.
This is Balls being rubbish, I think, rather than any reflection of ostrichism on the part of the candidates. He's so hopeless a media performer he makes Darling look like Graham Norton. Had he had the slightest clue about how things work he could have winged it, but no. Burnham has come up with some good ideas so far (and has made the 'listening' point that you rightly mention), but probably won't get the noms.
ReplyDeleteThe situation is much worse though, is it not, for what the likes of Ed Balls really think (allegedly) is that the fault lies not with them but with the British people who proved themselves unworthy of Gordon's leadership (prime example - "that woman"!).
ReplyDeleteAccordingly, no, there are no policies with which they disagree and they were not listening before and have no need to listen now. It is the British people who need to change - some limited encouragement is, of course, on offer through the spin line of "hearing what they have to tell us" - provided "they" get back on-message of course.
I don't want Ed Balls to win.
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