'Ed Balls is a perfectly decent man (shock horror)' blog discussion

Paulgonnabedebtfree

PhylPho wrote: »

Oh dear, Martin. This blog of yours really would be better if it stayed clear of pronouncing on the decency and probity of others without, it seems, having any clue to the individual's provenance.

Yet in Balls's case, that provenance is on public record. And it's so well known as to be the answer to the very question you ask about 'why demonise politicians?'

Mr Balls became an MP at the May 2005 election. His then constituency was Normanton. Due to subsequent boundary changes, he is today MP for Morley & Outwood, which has subsumed a part of Normanton.

Mrs Balls -- Yvette Cooper -- became an MP at the May, 1997 election. Her then constituency was Pontefract and Castleford. Due to subsequent boundary changes, she is today MP for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford.

Ms Cooper married Mr Balls in 1998. As luck would have it, they eventually became MPs for neighbouring constituencies.

Also, as luck would have it, they later became the first married couple ever to be Cabinet Ministers at the same time: Mr Balls was Secretary of State for Children, Schools & Families, whilst Mrs Balls was Chief Secretary to The Treasury.

Mr Balls's salary was £141,866. Mrs Balls's salary was £141,866. And such was their combined knowledge of education and finance that they designated the £655,000 family residence in which they lived in north London -- and from which their children went to school every day -- as their, er, "second home."

And enabled this £280,000-per-annum couple to claim £1,031 per month each by way of Parliamentary expenses' second home allowance.

Although Mr Balls has consistently defended his ability to be a Government Minister compelled to live far from his main home, and an educationalist who sends his children to schools from his second home, most people find that defence just a little hard to swallow.

This is because if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck then it is a duck.

Mr Balls would have us believe otherwise. The £655,000 family home was not, er, the family home, but, um, a second one the couple were compelled to buy, a sort of temporary roof over their heads (from which the children went to and fro to school five days a week) as a result of which the public purse was obligated to help 'em out with their mortgage.

And you, Martin, then wonder why some politicians are. . . demonised.

I think I could manage to be "very nice" if my snout was long enough for such a trough.
As things stand, I will just have to try to be poor and nice.

HueManatee

Honestly, it doesn't matter if you think he is a decent human being. It doesn't even matter if he actually is a decent human being.

What matters to me is that he actively tried to hurt home educated children. He fabricated stories to get his way (and was only narrowly prevented) When someone does that, it's really hard to care what he's like at a cocktail party, you know?

PaulJM

I have mixed feelings on MPs in general.

I think on one hand that they're in a very difficult position, trying to support their own parties' policies, whilst also trying to/trying to appear to support their own constituents.

I take an active part in an online forum that represents the town I live in. I know from some very simple issues how it's impossible to get behind something that everyone locally supports.
Take a road calming scheme here - living on one of the roads off the road that was done, I thought it was a great idea. The people who lived on the actual road hated it - said it caused noise, potholes, and there wasn't a problem in the first place. Whatever the councillor/MP supported, would've been wrong for lots of people, and right for others.
However, I do think they feather their own nest, I think they know what they're heading into, they get paid pretty handsomely for it. They should probably be doing it as a calling, rather than a career. I can't imagine many think of it that way privately.

As for Ed Balls being a nice man - I'll bet he is. He's hardly going to come across as a complete idiot, or he wouldn't have got anywhere (that said, we had Nicholas Winterton as an MP near here, and he came across as an unapproachable upper-class ejit, allegedly)

But Tony Blair always seemed very nice, Alistor Campbell was on the radio too the other day, and came across as an honest, down to earth chap. Evidence might point towards the fact that maybe they probably weren't, allegedly.
Gordon Brown, on the other hand, seemed a prickly, irritable man, but it looks like he's carrying on supporting his constituents, and is, apparently, not taking a very highly paid job, and will be doing charity work.
Well we'll see, but you get my point.

Can I just write "allegedly" here, to cover all the above, and that these are things that I personally have heard, but which are not the opinions of the site, or maybe not even mine. But they may be.
Ahem.

FatAndy

matty_yorks wrote: »

And you trust this guy to be honest with the country's finances?!

Martin, I'm bl**dy disappointed in you.

He's no worse than this guy -

"David Cameron was dragged personally into the expenses row last night after it was revealed that he paid off a loan on his London home shortly after taking out a £350,000 taxpayer-funded mortgage on his constituency house. The disclosure followed a powerful call by the Tory leader yesterday for the ‘full force of the law’ to be deployed against MPs who have abused allowances. Following a Mail on Sunday investigation Mr Cameron could now face searching questions about his own expense claims.

He took out the £350,000 mortgage – close to the maximum amount that can be claimed for – to buy a large house in Oxfordshire in August 2001, two months after winning his Witney seat in the General Election. By nominating it as his second home, he was able to claim for the mortgage interest payments under the now-infamous Commons’ Additional Costs Allowance (ACA). Just four months after securing the £350,000 mortgage, Mr Cameron paid off the £75,000 loan on his London home, taken out only six years earlier. There is no suggestion that he broke any rules. But mortgage experts say that if he had kept the loan on his London home and borrowed £75,000 less on the Oxfordshire property, taxpayers could have been saved more than £22,000 between 2002 and 2007."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1189788/Cameron-took-maximum-taxpayer-funded-mortgage--paid-75k-loan-months-later.html#ixzz1CEprlPzv

Flyboy152

penrhyn wrote: »

He is a fine example of the British Public school system.

Ed Balls didn't go to public school.

Flyboy152

matty_yorks wrote: »

And you trust this guy to be honest with the country's finances?!

Allegations over allowances
In September 2007, with his wife Yvette Cooper, he was accused of "breaking the spirit of Commons rules" by using MPs' allowances to help pay for a £655,000 home in north London.[22] Balls and his wife bought a four-bed house in Stoke Newington, north London, and registered this as their second home (rather than their home in Castleford, West Yorkshire) in order to qualify for up to £44,000 a year to subsidise a reported £438,000 mortgage under the Commons Additional Costs Allowance, of which they claimed £24,400. This is despite both spouses working in London full-time and their children attending local London schools. Through a spokesman, Balls and Cooper asserted that "The whole family travel between their Yorkshire home and London each week when Parliament is sitting. As they are all in London during the week, their children have always attended the nearest school to their London house."
Additional allegations have been made about Balls' and his wife's "flipping" of their second home three times within the space of two years.[23]

Martin, I'm bl**dy disappointed in you.

Hmm...I don't think you quite read all of that, did you?

Flyboy152

matty_yorks wrote: »

Here's an (potential biased) article on the guy. I'm guessing if any of it were untrue the website would have been sued and the page taken down... Sadly it's not the only site reporting what a mendacious s&*t the man is...

http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/3725688/talking-balls.thtml

Potential bias???????

Flyboy152

kar999 wrote: »

Eva Braun and the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire probably thought Hitler was a pleasant chap to have a dinner party with.

Politics overides personality as personality only affects a few. Politics affects us all.



Scotland will always be Labour/SNP so nothing new there and some REAL policy ideas from Labour, rather than just wingeing might help. I have yet to see any real alternative direction from either of the Ed's to put right their father Browns' woeful economic irresponsibility so I think they will be in opposition for a long time to come yet.

Yu have just demonstrated, perfectly I might add, exactly the theme of this thread. The totally unnecessary hyperbole expressed in your post, is exactly the point Martin is making. How on Earth can you compare Hitler with Ed Balls, or any British politician for that matter (apart from the obvious fringe right-wing extreme parties), is completely beyond reason.

PaulJM

Flyboy152 wrote: »

Potential bias???????

The Spectator, that Boris Johnson used to edit? That Spectator? Biased? Are you mad?

Orrin

FatAndy wrote: »

He's no worse than this guy -

"David Cameron was dragged personally into the expenses row last night after it was revealed that he paid off a loan on his London home shortly after taking out a £350,000 taxpayer-funded mortgage on his constituency house. The disclosure followed a powerful call by the Tory leader yesterday for the ‘full force of the law’ to be deployed against MPs who have abused allowances. Following a Mail on Sunday investigation Mr Cameron could now face searching questions about his own expense claims.

He took out the £350,000 mortgage – close to the maximum amount that can be claimed for – to buy a large house in Oxfordshire in August 2001, two months after winning his Witney seat in the General Election. By nominating it as his second home, he was able to claim for the mortgage interest payments under the now-infamous Commons’ Additional Costs Allowance (ACA). Just four months after securing the £350,000 mortgage, Mr Cameron paid off the £75,000 loan on his London home, taken out only six years earlier. There is no suggestion that he broke any rules. But mortgage experts say that if he had kept the loan on his London home and borrowed £75,000 less on the Oxfordshire property, taxpayers could have been saved more than £22,000 between 2002 and 2007."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1189788/Cameron-took-maximum-taxpayer-funded-mortgage--paid-75k-loan-months-later.html#ixzz1CEprlPzv

That's a bit thin really. They might as well have said that because he's a multi-millionaire he could have bought the house outright and saved the taxpayer even more money.

If you claim expenses as part of your job they aren't usually means tested.