Ed Balls and the art of campaigning

I thought that Ed Balls would be a natural for opposition politics. But I’ve been struck by the naivety of some of his recent interventions – notably the Duffy-wooing immigration proposal.

As James has argued, Balls’ plan to limit freedom of movement within the EU ia classic opposition politics. They are eye-catching, populist and but completely unworkable in practice. But Balls isn’t really in opposition yet: the Labour party is caught in a kind of limbo whilst it determines its future, a future that Balls wants to control. Advocating the unimplementable looks conniving rather than statesmanlike, naïve rather than astute. It provided an opportunity for his opponents, and Peter Hain, a major backer of Ed Miliband’s, took it on BBC Straight Talk:

‘Freedom of movement is a basic article of faith of the European Union. So the chances of changing that are about the same as the chances of going on holiday to Mars.’