Renaissance Balls

Balls is back. The author of Gordon Brown’s economic policies for 15 years. The man who bears more responsibility for anyone else – other than Brown – for the asset bubble and the consequent crash. But I suspect that, right now, Theresa May is doing cartwheels and George Osborne cursing. Balls, for all his many drawbacks, is the most ferocious attack dog there is. His brilliance (and I hate using that word) at using numbers as weapons far surprassed anything the Tories could manage in Opposition. His policies are reckless: to borrow, and to hell with the consequences. His modus operandi is to launch around-the-clock attacks. He has powerful media contacts, and uses them to full effect. He is the most able fighter in Labour’s frontbench, as he proved in the leadership contest. Unloveable, yes, which is why he’d make a bad leader. But if I were Osborne, I know who’d I be praying not to be put up against.