Balls in trouble

Life is about to get worse for Ed Balls. Remember Ken Boston, the sacked head of the QCA exams quango who was sacked over the SATS exams fiasco? Well he is now released from the purdah of his contract, and we have been waiting for a while to hear his side of the story – namely that Balls and his deputy, Jim Knight misled both Parliament and the Sutherland Inquiry. He has written a letter laying out the porkie pies he claims that Balls and Knight served up, and I gather the BBC will run the story tomorrow. For example, he claims – staggeringly – that Knight concocted meetings that he was supposed to have attended. And Balls told Parliament that he, the loyal minister, had asked the QCA for assurances that the SATS exams were on track. Not so, says Boston, this was “fiction”. And one which he thinks was designed to blacken his name.