Balls in your pocket

Most people I have spoken to have a grudging respect for Alastair Darling. he was dealt a bad hand and has done his best even while having the thumbscrews put on him by the madman next door. Now apparently he is to be given the chop so that Ed Balls ("widely respected in the city" according to the Sunday Times) can assume the job.

Hold on a minute! I don't know much about the city but it stretches even my copious imagination that he would be welcomed by the economic movers and shakers. This is surely the same man who advised Gordon Brown on his various tax-raising sleights of hand and helped him deliver budgets that increased public borrowing as well as taxes. Widely respected in the city?!!

Mr Balls' record is hardly stellar. As a scholls minister he has precipitated and presided over examination fiascos, declining standarda, and various half-baked schemes like making cooking compulsory in all schools. Mr Darling by contrast has been a steady, if unimaginative, pair of hands in all his portfolios.

It does say something of Brown's bunker mentality that he can actually believe that the media-unfriendly Mr Balls will bring sunshine to his decaying government.