Labour Uncut is interviewing Ed Balls about his leadership bid.
What should we ask him? What will your vote depend on? Here’s a chance to have your say.
Add them to this thread as a comment, by 6pm today.
UPDATE – 26.5.10:
We’ve now done the interview, which will appear either later today or early tomorrow.
So this thread is now closed.
Thanks for the helpful contributions.
Will there be change of Labour’s education policy away from academies now that the Conservatives have corrupted the origional intention of the policy?
What are you going to do differently this time ?
And why didn’t you do it before ?
Unpaid internships only offer opportunities to graduates who can afford to work for free and entrench inequality. Do you support the belief of Labour Students, the NUS and many Labour MPs that all interns must be paid at least the minimum wage?
As a Tory, I beg you – could you please win? Please, please, pretty please?
It’ll be almost as funny as the time you elected that chap in the duffle coat.
What time will you be home for tea?
Please outline all of your current policies that differ in any way whatsoever from those you pursued in tandem with Gordon Brown over the last five years.
And if there aren’t any – which surely there cannot be – what on earth do you think you have to contribute to public life in the country?
Another one if I may.
Re your Nazi uniform.
Who do you consider to be the worst, marxists or fascists ?
Does the number of people they have killed influence your decision ?
It was far-sighted of you to conduct a review of Home Education last year, but do you feel let down by the quality of that report eclipsing the need for action? Would you do things differently if there were another opportunity?
When did you realise that everything that Gordon did was wrong and why were you so poor at your previous job that you didn’t undergo this conversion until you couldn’t do anything about it?
What is the price of gold today – or can you not bare to look anymore ?
So you were in government when we now hear that the Army were told to save money by halting internal recruitment and training of Bomb Disposal Officers, when we were (and remain) in a war in Afghanistan, slogging around on foot, because there weren’t enough troop carrying aircraft, yet still you cut the helicopter budget….umm…actually I think you are an evil turd, floating in a cesspit of evil populated by bad, corrupt, incompetent, venal, self serving evil war criminals. Even supporting your party is to my mind tantamount to being an accessory to war crimes.
Leader of the Labour Party? What a joke. You should be in custody, awaiting trial in the Hague.
At what point do you consider that dissent should be suppressed?
Given the labour party’s 13 year drive to criminalize, ID, barcode and DNA the UK population; the illegal wars and under financing of our armed forces; the simple throwing money at the hugely inefficient NHS with negative improvement in service; the PFI debt; the hugely expensive and bloated public sector; the vast sea of migrant labour allowed in when we have 8 million economically inactive sucking up benefits we cant afford AND your total unwillingness to listen to a cacophony of opposition to your schemes … just what makes you think the population of the UK will ever elect labour into power again especially with someone so tainted by close association to Crash Gordon Brown in the top job?
Pity that Labour Uncut has allowed this to be hijacked by the hate-filled Guido Fawkes/Paul Staines fans, when there are entirely legitimate personal and political questions which Balls should face. At the moment, he can dismiss this entire exercise in openess, because it has been abused by the Fawkes followers to vent their own bile. The comments which are simply offensive can be removed immediately, can’t they? Why should we allow these people to infect this site?
What will you say to the innumerable white, working class people in Labour constituencies who have turned away from the party for being soft on immigration?
These people are very angry and very distrustful of politicians. How will you convince them that their problems are not caused by immigrants in general? How will you seek to improve their lives and communities so that they are not looking for scapegoats for their social ills?
How do you win a land war with Russia?
Are you prepared to acknowedge that your old mentor and boss proved disastrous for the British economy and why should the electorate (and the Labour Party) consider you to be anything other than Gordon Brown Mark II?
What’s your point?
Here’s another one: Do you think that having a comedy surname will be an aid or hindrance were you to become leader of the party?
To “Anon”, freedom of speech hurts, doesn’t it?
You wrecked the economy once. Do you honestly think the electorate will vote you back in so you can wreck it all over again?
Should union members be able to choose which party their political levy goes to?
Re:anon says: May 25, 2010 at 1:39 pm
Would you rather preach to the choir? or actually get out there and face the people Labour have let down over the past 13 years and who told you so in the recent election? and perhaps explain to them why they should even consider listening to you after the humiliation of £3,000,000,000 a week on the nations credit card, 2.5m unemployed, 1 million part-time workers seeking full-time work, 8 million economically inactive adults, 900,000 16-24yo’s not in work or education?
When the leadership candidates say that they were guilty of “not listening” enough in the last government, how and why were you not listening? What steps would you take to listen sufficiently if you had another opportunity?
Many in the teaching profession struggled both with you tendency towards bureaucracy and towards dictatorial policy making. For example, the blogger Scenes from the Battleground, a committed teacher, and definitely not a Tory, had this to say about you:
“He [Balls] is responsible for:
* The introduction (with extensive government money) of Assessing Pupil Progress, a barely tested, ever-changing scheme of assessment , based on a belief in bureaucracy and basic confusion between formative and summative assessment.
* Accepting the claims of the Steer Report (which stated that serious misbehaviour in schools is rare).
* The removal of “Education” from the name of the department running schools and the continuing disastrous attempts to combine education and children’s services into one incompetent bureaucracy.
* Ignoring the evidence from the government’s own research that support from teaching assistants harms the progress of students with SEN.
* Supporting SEAL and attempts to replace education with socialisation.
* Introducing constant curriculum changes (even more than usual), including such highlights as new Diplomas and Functional Skills.
* Attempts to increase the burden of the SEN bureaucracy.
* Allowing OFSTED to fail some of the most successful schools in the country.
* Continuing to allow schools to spend money on gimmicks, even after admitting that Brain Gym was pointless.
* Blaming schools, rather than his own policies, for stressing children out with tests.”
So the questions: Do you acknowledge that your approach was too bureaucratic? And do you acknowledge that teachers should be left to teach, not co-opted by politicians to achieve politically motivated social goals?
Link
http://teachingbattleground.wordpress.com/2010/05/15/bye-bye-mr-balls/
You deleted my imo reasonable comment, it seems freedom of speech is still unwelcome in your world eh Ed, espiacially if it’s too close to the truth. Still i can console myself with the fact that New labour faces a twenty year sabbatical, and my kids will grow up in a country free from discrimination.
Mr Balls, how would you counter the deficit, it now seems the market is more reassured with the Lib Con government, why did they not believe in our previous administration.
How would you solve the West Lothian Question? The Tories are probably going to exclude Scottish MPs from voting. Why was there a swing to Labour in Scotland which has a SNP government and the worst Labour opposition ever?
Since the central control model espoused by Gordon seems to have failed in Education, Health and Transport and everything else how would you restructure the party policy. Would you decentralise everything?
You came under criticism for the way you and your wife structured your expense claims, do you think that your claims were fair when many of us pensioners are existing on less than you claim on expenses? We have to buy our own food yet according to the press despite your joint salaries of over £288,000 you were reported claiming £600 pm for food generous amounts for second home allowance. Is this the moral action of a leader of the people’s party when some pensioners get less than £600 for everything?
There has been massive waste identified in the public sector by independent sources why was this not dealt with?
What do you feel feel was the reason the swing in your constituency was much greater than others?
The BNP went down 0.6% (pleasing and showing immigration was not a factor) but all the others increased and there was a 9.3% swing to the Tories. If UKIP had not stood then the Tories might have won. Nothing like this happened in surrounding seats. If you cannot inspire your own constituency how are you going to inspire the country as Labour leader?
thanks
Hamish
Anon Wrote….
“Pity that Labour Uncut has allowed this to be hijacked by the hate-filled Guido Fawkes/Paul Staines fans, when there are entirely legitimate personal and political questions which Balls should face. At the moment, he can dismiss this entire exercise in openess, because it has been abused by the Fawkes followers to vent their own bile. The comments which are simply offensive can be removed immediately, can’t they? Why should we allow these people to infect this site?”
Answer: Because people are very, very angry. Or would you rather stick your fingers in your ears like a good Guardianista and go ‘tra la la, I’m not listening’ because you cannot bear to hear the charges of 13 years of mayhem, authoritarianism (which makes the Tories look like a soft touch) and utter financial disaster against these odious self seeking, venal, incompetent criminals – of which Balls is one – listed?
another thing it is not your fault you had a well off private education and now have an income of well over £120,000 with expenses but how are you going to connect with the millions living in poverty? Aside from leader writer for the FT for four years all your experience has been inside the Westminster fence, how does this give you the experience that some other candidates have? Your career was aligned with some of the more undesirable episodes during the Blair and Brown administration, as leader what would be your view of the backstabbing and briefing which went on and which colleagues of yours were exposed as being the source? Independent sources now report that Gordon Brown appears to have actually obstructed many policies which would have made Tony Blair a better leader. Do you now regret that this happened?
If a magic wizard granted you 3 wishes, what would you wish for?. (nothing dirty mind!…. and nothing about tax credits, Surestart or World peace!. We don’t want to bore the punters this early in the campaign)
Also if the same magic wizard said ‘If you want to throw off your human form, I can transform you into any animal you like’, What animal would you choose to be? I’d be a Lion myself , ROAAAARRRRR.
If you did choose to be an animal, would you convert the rest of the animal world to some form of socialism, or social-democracy (one paw, one vote?), and away from the ‘law of the jungle’? Would all animals ‘get the same’ chances in life. Would the strong ones be restrained, and the weak ones protected? If so what effect might this have on the foodchain?
Using the Terrorism Act 2000, Section 44, the police prevented the 82-year old Labour party supporter, Walter Wolfgang, from re-entering the Brighton conference hall. Yet during the passage of the Bill through parliament Ministers gave assurance that the Terrorism Act would not be used for policing political demonstrations or handling public order issues.
This is just one in a countless number of instances where the law abiding public have had legislation used against them, in contravention of the intentions of such legislation.
From your demeanour in the election campaign, you appeared to have learned nothing from these disasters of governance. I would be most happy for you to prove me wrong. Your call!
I realise many people are angry and many voted Lib rather than Labour and prefer the Lib Con to Labour being in control but if Labour is to form a good opposition it needs a good leader so the questions should be sensible. There are plentyof places to comment on Labour
I would just like to make it clear that the mispelling in my previous post was a typo, and not the result of the poor educational standards of the last thirteen years.
Which do you value more?
Integrity, or postal votes?
Reflecting on the past 13 years, what do you think are the Labour parties greatest achievements while in government? And which one are you most proud of?
Will the tory scum and their pukes please go back to whichever secure unit they’ve escaped from.
Ed, why do you think given the huge amount of money available to them, a Labour party tired after 13 years in power, an unpopular PM and the backing of almost every mass market news paper; didn’t the tories actually manage to win the election?
Since you have now accepted my last question, you may now understand that a previous one, which you deleted, is rather less fanciful than you might have originally considered. So I will repeat it:
Apart from the shooting of dissenters, how do your views on the legitimate conduct of government differ markedly to those of the Stasi?
If Mr Balls is serious about leading the Labour Party and, at least contingently, the country, he has to be prepared to answer questions such as these.
Do you regret undermining Tony Blair so much when he was Labour leader?
Do you be happy if people treated you the same way?
(Please don’t try and deny/lie. I know what you did. I will never forget and I will never forgive you.)
To Hamish:
The problem is that, by basic nature, Labour doesn’t listen, but would rather dictate. That is why a forum such as this becomes a vent for those ignored since 1997.
If you had listened, you wouldn’t now be in opposition and it is very rich of EB to suggest he will suddenly become approachable, when past performance demonstrates otherwise.
Chris – thanks a bunch, spent ages preparing lunch, enjoyed it immensely but then read your quesiton and was violently sick.
You are very closely associated, if not allied with Gordon whilst at the Treasury, so:- How can you explain your new found independence; the words that you have so far uttered dis-associating yourself with the man, with whom you were very close and worked closely with, seem rather hollow and lacking conviction.
You seem to offer up to us some Damascene conversion, without firm foundation, expecting us to accept your words as gospel. You are closely associated with 13 years of NuLab, the Blair project some would say, why should we support this alleged conversion of yours to socialist principles?
What do you offer and can we trust your words? your past offers little confort.
Ed,
You so wanted to be chancellor. Do YOU know the difference between a deficit and a debt?
Gordon seems not to; or perhaps it was Labour policy to deliberately muddle those terms to misrepresent reality. He even told Mrs. Duffy that he would “halve the DEBT in four” years!
Doesn’t inspire confidence, does it?
If you were elected leader of the Labour Party, would you change your name by deed poll before the next election, in order to save the whole country from severe embarrassment in the unlikely event that you became Prime Minister ?
Alan Douglas
Why?
Since you have “moderated” my initial question about the postal voting in Ed Balls’ constituency out of existence can I try this ………..
Do you believe in free speech & listening to the voters of Britain? or are we all “bigots”?
Isn’t it quite dangerous for you to be the head of a party when only a small swing will oust you?
Socialist Said…”Will the tory scum and their pukes please go back to whichever secure unit they’ve escaped from.
Ed, why do you think given the huge amount of money available to them, a Labour party tired after 13 years in power, an unpopular PM and the backing of almost every mass market news paper; didn’t the tories actually manage to win the election?”
Funny how these Labour tribalists think anybody who disagrees with their rotten immoral vision and criminal murderous behaviour is ‘Tory Scum’. I don’t know what planet these socialist nutjobs have been living on for the past13 years, but I suspect they are in for a bit of a shock.
BTW, the bloke who is PM happens to be a Tory. What did Labour win the election in Grauny fantasyland?
My question was serious. If I never turned up for work I would get the sack and I earn a lot less than an ex prime minister .How many days should it be before an MP, who never turned up for work, was told to resign.
I doubt this post will survive, but good point Peter Whear, a thorough investigation is warranted.
I will be very surprised if Ed Balls actually answers any searching questions – his erstwhile master never did.
My question: Given that you are, in the eyes of many, irrevocably associated with Gordon Brown, what chance do you think you have of convincing former Labour voters that you are what they want?