Balls pitches for the leadership

The Ed Balls leadership cart is revving up a gear. He wants to position himself as the main mover behind the election campaign, now that Gordon Brown is dead in the water. It was his plan to stop Darling jacking up VAT to 20 percent, so he can accuse the Tories of wanting to do that (it’ll be more like 22.5 percent IMHO – but that’s another story). And now Balls has told tomorrow’s Sunday Times that Labour’s election focus will be on the family. “In the past I think our family policy was all about children,” says Father Balls. “I think our family policy now is actually about the strength of the adult relationships and that is important for the progress of the children.”

Does Balls have any idea about the extent of which the welfare state under Labour has robbed the low-income family of its economic function, about how adults are no longer better off together, and incentivised to split up with all the effects that has on the children? But it gets better.