Meet Ed Balls, the candidate for Mrs Duffy. As the race for nominations closes, the
Labour leadership candidates are beginning to focus on party members. With varying degrees of conviction, the contenders have identified immigration as the issue the party must
address if it is to reconnect with those voters who spurned it.
Ed Balls is that analysis’s most fervent advocate. He devoted an article in the Observer to the subject. Balls argued that there has been too much migration from Eastern Europe, and it has caused economic and social ills in communities such as the one he represents. In hindsight, Britain should have accepted the transitional controls during the eastern bloc’s accession in 2004.
Labour rejected the transitional controls for a reason. Balls and Brown constructed an illusory boom built in part on an inexhaustible supply cheap migrant labour. No broadcaster raised this point with Balls in interviews this morning.
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