Exposing the con man

To the chagrin of CoffeeHousers, I have long rated Ed Balls and his abilities. He has a degree of brilliance, albeit tragically deployed in the services of a destructive economic agenda. But as we welcome him back, it’s worth reminding ourselves that his abilities are of a specific type. He understands economics (even though he did PPE) but his speciality is in creative accounting. His only tactic is to spend, borrow and cover both up by cooking the books. He is a trickster, not an economist. More Arthur Daley than Arthur Laffer. In my News of the World column today (£) I say he is dangerous to Labour as well as the Tories, perhaps more so. But it’s worth recapping what we’re dealing with.

Until Balls came along, Brown was struggling on economics. Balls was the brains and introduced a brazen certainty, ferocious energy and guerrilla tactics. His language was so technical and baffling that no one challenged it.