The TB-GBs Mark II, Part II

My column for The Independent on Sunday on the relationship between Labour leader and Shadow Chancellor is on the new Indy Voices part of the website. This blog will become part of this brave new world shortly, so “bear with”, as Miranda’s mother says, as we try to improve the customer experience.

By way of footnotes to the column, which suggests that Labour’s challenge is personality (Ed Miliband’s confidence versus Ed Balls’s patience) more than policy (they agree on the basic tax-and-spend position, although I think there is plenty of scope for Ed M’s naive leftism to cause policy problems as well), here is some further reading:

The Daily Mail’s “Ed to Ed feud”. Kevin Maguire’s New Statesman diary, with the original BlackBerry story. Ed Balls’s interview in The Independent last week, in which he accepted it was true and said that Yvette Cooper and Douglas Alexander were worse offenders. Steve Richards’s column in The Independent on Friday, in which he referred to Balls’s only “partly unfair reputation” as a plotter (a view he amended to “totally unfair” on Twitter, on the grounds that plotting is a part of politics and it is unfair to label Balls as if he were unique).

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• Tatty_D

  This again? Your lot were the future once….Had your chance, made a mess. Get over it.

• stonedwolf

  I like how he flaps – like a vampire bat – ever further to the right. What’s it this week? Oh yes, “naive leftism”.

  I’m calling it: “naive leftism is that which is distinguishable from Tory/Tony policy”.

• Tatty_D

  He as it again….There is a re visitation. He watching Andrew Marr and getting a little over exercised by the continued existence of Ed Balls. He is getting monomaniacal. Even the North Korean get over the demise of their former leaders. Rentoul just will not let the flame of Blair diminish. That makes at least two of them.

  I think i shall enjoy keeping a tab on this. This focused & pointless obsession is contagious.

• stonedwolf

  The five stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance.
  He’s stuck somewhere between the first and the second, with touches of the third.

  Can you imagine what he’ll be like in stage four? He’ll need to be on 24 hour suicide watch for about as many years.

• creggancowboy

  Tax and spend? How does that work on £69.50 per week John? Which regiment is Euan Blair with in Afghanistan, Mr Rentoul?