Re-introducing Ed

We already knew Ed Balls was behind Gordon Brown’s economic policy. He devised the policy on spending that left Britain with the worst deficit heading into the crisis, and wrote the bank regulations that his colleague Douglas Alexander attacked earlier today.
 
What we have discovered today, from Balls’ first foray into economic policy as Shadow Chancellor, is that he was also behind the old Brown ploy of twisted facts and absurd assertions.
 
First, he claimed the public finances are better than the Treasury forecast. Yet the independent Office for Budget Responsibility found that the structural deficit – the hole we have to fix – was worse than Labour admitted.
 
Second, he described Labour’s economic plan as “credible”, when everyone, from the OECD to the IMF, Britain’s major business leaders, the European Commission, and even the Governor of the Bank of England appointed by Gordon Brown, said Labour’s plans lacked credibility.