A load of old Balls: no need to be scared of Ed

Why is the right-wing Daily Mail in such a tizzy about Ed Balls running for the Labour leadership? The paper has dug up a four-year-old story about Balls having once been a member of the Oxford Conservative Association, presenting it this morning as if it were 'new' news in a desperate attempt to discredit Ball's candidacy.

The Mail was reacting to a Daily Mirror interview yesterday in which Balls said he had been inspired to join Labour by his hatred of Margaret Thatcher's policies when he was at university.

"I started studying [the economy] in 1983 when Thatcherism was at its peak - and I realised immediately that I wanted to show you could run an economy in a way which delivered social justice," the former Schools Secretary told the Mirror.

"All through my university days and my career I've been driven by the desire to prove that Labour could run the economy well."

To which the Mail responded that Balls was having "difficulty with his memory". It then proceeded to reveal his "secret past" as a signed-up member of the Oxford Conservative Association while at Keble College in the 1980s - a secret that "had lain undetected for more than three decades".

The Mail admitted that the secret was unearthed by Philip Hollobone, the Tory MP for Kettering, who was secretary of the same Conservative Association and can clearly remember Ed Balls being a member.

What the Mail didn't say was that this is a very old story - told in the Independent Pandora column in July 2006.

This didn't stop the Mail digging up an (anonymous) Labour MP today to say: "It's astonishing that any Labour leadership contenders could have even considered paying money to join a Tory association in the mid-1980s.

"It's sickening as he was paying them subs when Mrs Thatcher was wreaking terrible destruction on constituencies in the North of England that he represents. No wonder he is airbrushing his past."

The Mail might have done better to have read a more recent piece of journalism - a piece in yesterday's Daily Telegraph which reported that a poll of Labour backbenchers shows Ed Miliband emerging as a likely victor - and Ed Balls coming nowhere.

As the Mole explained last week, this is because Labour's alternative vote system makes second and third votes of crucial importance. The poll shows that Ed Miliband is second to his brother David in terms of first votes - but gets more second and third preferences than any other candidate.

The poll of 652 Labour members and trade unionists showed "a surprising lack of support" for Ed Balls, the Telegraph said. He was bottom of both the first and second preferences, and had only 18.5 per cent of third preferences.

In short, Balls has about as much chance as Diane Abbott of becoming the next leader of the Labour party. He is too tied in to Gordon Brown's regime for most backbenchers' taste and, outside Brownite circles and the Unite union, has too few friends in the party.

The Mail has nothing to worry about. ·