Demolition Balls |

Tuesday 26th October 2010 | 16:31

Demolition Balls

The political community sees Ed Balls as the Labour politican most able to do damage the coalition government. The shadow home secretary is particularly feared by Conservative insiders.

Ed Balls is the Labour frontbencher most able to damage the coalition government, according to a survey of MPs and other Westminster insiders.

Tories have greatest fear

A PoliticsHome survey of those working at the heart of Westminster found that Balls is overwhelmingly seen to present a greater threat than any of his colleagues. Forty seven per cent of believe that Balls is the Labour politician who can do most damage to the government. Shadow chancellor Alan Johnson was ranked second, but trailed 22 points behind.

Conservative-leaning political insiders rated Balls the most highly, suggesting a deep-seated fear of the pugnacious shadow home secretary.

Among political observers, Balls and Johnson are thought to present a comparable danger to the coalition, on twenty six and twenty four per cent respectively.

Both sections of the panel put Yvette Cooper in third place, giving the Balls/Cooper household two of the three top spots.

No other politician gained a significant level of support.

PoliticsHome's unique survey of insider and informed political opinion maps the views of the extended Westminster Village: we canvass over 350 insiders professionally involved in politics - including MPs, senior civil servants, political journalists, public affairs and communications experts, and researchers in think tanks and parliamentary offices. In order to get a complete picture of the informed opinion, we simultaneously poll approximately 1,000 engaged political observers across the country: people who follow politics closely but do not work in Westminster.

Our survey is completely anonymous, which allows participants to answer frankly without fear of having to toe the ‘party line’.

PoliticsHome interviewed 357 people professionally involved in politics and 952 politically informed members of the public from 14-19 October 2010. Final results are weighted to ensure a politically balanced result.

Leave a comment...

Bev C

12:56 |
27 Oct 2010
0

Why does this not surprise me? The sheer amount of vitriol directed at Ed Balls from the rightwing media always suggested this was what lay behind their attacks. What a pity he's not shadow chancellor - a failure of nerve by Ed Miliband if ever there was one.

Tom Burkard

09:50 |
05 Nov 2010
Recommended
2

Balls may be able to mount effective guerilla raids against Gove's operations, but this is only to be expected: the coalition is taking on a lot of vested interests in education--people with unparalleled access to the media. However, Balls has made far too many enemies to be an effective challenger, and he bears too much of the responsibility for Labour's disastrous economic policies. Tory insiders should reflect that he has, with a lot of help from Brown and McBride, wrested the mantle of the 'nasty party' from the Tories. His megalomania and mean-spirited vindictiveness will do for him just as it did for Brown--but in his case, I suspect it would take a spectacular Tory meltdown before he ever gets a sniff of No 10. After all, Brown never won an election.

Tom

17:31 |
20 Jan 2011
0

It's not just right wing media. People forgot Balls attended meetings with the Bilderburg Group (chaired by Dr Kissinger) and on a plane with Conrad Black. He likes also to align himself with the wealthy which is no wonder he took a blind eye to banks and what the FSA was upto as Chief Advisor to treasury prior to global recession. Being Treasurer is not just about Maths but bringing back the moral dimension to economy which was the aim Johnson. Shame all the techocrats at Whitehall ganged up on him...

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