Ed Balls uses an interview in the Daily Mirror today to take a swipe at the Milibands in an effort to (un)distinguish himself when asked how he can stand out in a field of Labour Leadership candidates who are all (other than Diane Abbott) male, 40-something, Oxbridge.
“We’re not all the same. I didn’t grow up in North London. I don’t come from an intellectual Labour family and neither does Andy Burnham. My grandfather was a driver for the gas company. I first went abroad when I was 18, and first got on a plane when I was 21.”
Oh please, are we reduced to this? Yes Ed, your grandfather drove trucks, but your father is Michael Balls, emeritus professor of biology at Nottingham University, you went to “the fee-paying Nottingham High School” and on to study Politics Philosophy and Economics at Oxford. Just so we’re clear. And there is nothing wrong with any of that.
The piece goes on to say that Balls who is running third behind David and Ed Miliband is handicapped by being closely associated with the failure of Gordon Brown. That seems like only one handicap.
The Labour Leadership race isn’t about where you came from or how you spin it it is about where you and the party are going.
