Will someone tell Ed Balls that Jeremy Corbyn isn’t the one living a fantasy?
Which of these Corbyn policies would you describe as ‘leftist utopian fantasy’, Ed Balls? Everyone paying their fair share, perhaps?
It’s astonishing, isn’t it? A former politician, who is about to become a contestant on Strictly Come Dancing, is accusing one of his successors of living in a fantasy world.
Ed Balls needs someone near him to point out that he is the fantasist.
He’s right that “refusing to listen to the electorate” isn’t a “winning formula”. Does he think the anti-Corbyn idea of actually disenfranchising the electorate (in the party leadership election) is better?
He’s also right that the volume of cheering from core supporters is not a reliable guide to wider public opinion. The clamour by members of the wider electorate to become core supporters of Jeremy Corbyn is highly indicative, however.
There’s a list of Mr Corbyn’s policies at the top of this article. Judge for yourself whether they are “leftist utopian fantasy” or whether they really do connect to real people’s lives.
As for Mr Balls: A joker on Twitter has altered the cover of his new book to give it a more appropriate title. What do you think?
Ed Balls has warned that “Jeremy Corbyn’s leftist utopian fantasy” will not return the Labour Party to government.
The former shadow chancellor made the criticism within an analysis of Labour’s 2015 election campaign, which he described as “astonishingly dysfunctional”.
“Refusing to listen to the electorate has never been a winning formula, any more than Jeremy Corbyn thinking the volume of the cheering from your core supporters is a reliable guide to wider public opinion,” he said.
“Caution will not win the day; but nor will Jeremy Corbyn’s leftist utopian fantasy, devoid of connection to the reality of people’s lives.”
Source: Ed Balls attacks Jeremy Corbyn’s ‘leftist utopian fantasy’ | UK Politics | News | The Independent
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oh dear sour balls hay better tell him his wife could very well be deselected
Unless Jeremy Corbyn spells out his fiscal policy not only Balls, but everyone will attack Mr Corbyn as a romantic dreamer rather than a potential Prime Minister. In fact I’d be interested in discovering the what’s what of Labour plan; at present I have no clear idea of the substance behind the style.
It isn’t an election manifesto.
This is from the man no one wanted to follow he should take note from Jeremy tell the truth and think of the working class and the country all the gravy train don’t do
Ed Balls and his load of looser’s? Does this fool not realise that his and Millies policies lost not only his seat but a general election?
He’s the one in loony land surely.
Ed Balls did get it right when he stated that Labour’s 2015 election campaign was dysfunctional. The LP was unable to connect with the millions who have been ill served by the right wing elitists of the party. What is strikingly obvious, is that a LP spokesperson has been able to connect with people across the country, young and old, Labour and previously disinterested in the one party system(Hard right Tories and hard right Labour). His name is Jeremy Corbyn. What we have seen since the people gave him their vote is more dysfunctionality from the hard and soft right in once again championing their elitist view, that being to disenfranchise the voting public, even to the extent of their own party. What do these Parliamentarians of the right wing in Labour think will happen if Corbyn’s movement is defeated by their vicious, lying and undemocratic activities? The answer is very simple. They will never recover or govern this country again, approx. 6 million people will make sure of it by looking elsewhere for “honest” representation, something they know by now they will never have from the “New Labour” party. Ed Balls needs to take his head out from wherever he has deposited it and take in the fresh air that Corbyn has breathed into stale pointless ass about face politics.
The guy is out of touch, lost a winnable election flogging Tory style policies.
He fails to highlight Corbyn building support for labour, and the 4.5 million pounds gone into the coffers.
Corbyn is a success, the 2 Eds failed,
Sour grapes I’m afraid..
Balls by name… Balls by nature ! :-)
Ed Balls didn’t do too well with his own constituency electorate, so who is he to talk?
Is “A decent job in a decent economy” an aspiration or a promise? If it’s a promise how could it possibly be honoured? Will all the part-time mucky jobs be gotten rid of and everybody given a clean, well paid and rewarding position, with just the right number of hours to suit everybody, offering everyone the opportunity of training and career progression? See, this kind of vagueness reminds me of Ed Miliband’s “Edstone” misadventure which offered pledges such as “An NHS with time to care” which could mean anything. I mean what’s on the card is great if it were ever possible but then so would be a world without crime, cancer or child abuse, all three of which evils I fear will continue to plague society for the foreseeable future, possibly forever. So Balls is right really and the pledges do look kind of idealistic rather than practical.
It’s a policy. It doesn’t say part-time or “mucky” jobs will go; it says Labour would legislate so that jobs will be decent, and so will the economy – as opposed to the current situation in which many employees are treated very badly, paid poorly, and the economy is in deep trouble due to six years of Tory mismanagement.
Your claim is that such an aim is not achievable. Where is your evidence for that? Is it the last 37 years of neoliberal corruption?
No, Balls is wrong. He’s just trying to run Corbyn down and so are you.
If it were really that simple, Mike, don’t you think a previous Labour government would have achieved it earlier. Or even a Conservative one! After all Harold Macmillan, a Tory Prime Minister, built the most social housing in this country in history.
Nobody said it would be simple. And for anything to happen, there must first exist the will to make it happen. That has been lacking for several decades, until now.
Where’s the evidence, or even a hint of explanation, how Mr Corbyn will achieve a single one of his goals?
The same place as Owen Smith’s – or Theresa May’s, for that matter.
I was brought up in a 1960s “old skool” Liberal household (well before the advent of the Lib Dems) with centre-of-the-road political beliefs. To me that meme describes a 1960s Liberal consensus and a balanced economy to a T. Describing JC’s proposals as “hard Left” just goes to show how far to the Right UK politics have shifted. During the 1970s we lost some of our post-war consensus, partially down to the financial strains resulting from the 1973 oil shock but looking back I think the rot started in1969 when Murdoch bought The Sun and turned it into the lying propaganda rag that we all know and hate. In 1979 the press savaged Callaghan using an ill-advised sound bite: “Crisis? What crisis” after he arrived from sunny climes to a country enduring an especially nasty winter. Sadly we know to our cost the aftermath of the May1979 general election.
Yaawwwnn!! Sums up his surname neatly.