Civil Servants soon catch on if they have a Cabinet Minister who is devoted to their work. That's why the old DTI looked up to Heseltine and Mandelson so much. But if they have a Secretary of State whose priorities lie elsewhere a government department soon becomes disfunctional. The Children Schools & Families department is rudderless because Ed Balls just isn't interested in the subject. He has only one agenda. His own. And education doesn't figure very highly in that.
UPDATE 12.27: From a reader...
In December I attended a talk at Oxford University about the "TeachFirst" scheme, and the crowd-puller was an appearance by Balls. However, during other peoples' presentations he was constantly on his Blackberry and just wasn't listening, occasionally feigning the odd smile or chuckle when the rest of the audience did. It couldn't have been clearer that he thought the job was below him. I found it embarrassing and worrying that somebody with clearly so little interest in education policy is nationally responsible for it. Contrast this with the other crowd-pulled Lord Adonis: he was engaged, enthusiastic, and actually seemed to care about the matter in hand.
29 comments:
The trouble is, the PM's speech at first glance seems to be the usual 'give parents power' bollocks.
We've heard it all before, lack of substance and headline grabbing gimmickry yet again.
Even the BBC is not featuring it prominently on its front page - that's a bad sign for the government.
Surely it is a dangerous game for Gordon Brown to be trying to re-gain the wider political initiative using Education as the hammer?
Gordon is opening himself up to accusations of mishandling of the Education brief and potentially re-opening "Smeargate" with which Ed Balls is ever more closely being linked to in the main stream media.
A slight re-write of the last few sentences...
The civil service is rudderless because Gordon Brown just isn't interested in the subject. He has only one agenda. His own. And the nation doesn't figure very highly in that.You could never describe Brown and Balls as chalk and cheese. They are two peas in a pod.
I dare say the behaviour of Jim Knight is just as disagreeable. In another time he would have been told to resign for having misled Parliament. Brown may have a semblance of authority but he is wholly incapable of wielding it.
Ed Balls was my reason for deciding that things weren't going to change under "putting parliament back at the centre of government" Brown at all.
A couple of weeks after GB took over and Balls became schools minister he was the first high-profile minister to attempt "news management" under the new regime by announcing that schools would be encouraged to teach "Britishness".
The attempt was to start the usual "national debate" so beloved of Blair - something to hide any bad news. Luckily and unusually the media, for once, was awake and ambushed him on all the morning breakfast shows.
Any new money for this ? "No"
Any time in the already crowded school scheduled ? "No"
So how is this going to work ? "--usual waffle about 'encouraging' and 'promoting'--"
As with so many other schemes this one has never been mentioned again. It probably sits like an unwanted toy at the bottom of a cupboard in his offices somewhere along with all the other "initiatives without wings".
Scarily when you watch an evasive interview with Balls (is there any other kind ?) and then watch one with Cooper, its kind of interesting to note how they answer (or rather try to avoid answering) any questions in exactly the same way. Same tone of voice, same body language, everything.
The only difference is that whilst Balls looks sneaky and comfortable with doing it, Cooper looks like a fibbing 5-year old scared of being found out.
How many more political suicides is the PM going to expose us to? Ed Balls, complete waste of space together with the rest of the numpties that call themselves a government. I am shocked how this level of incompetence is continually tolerated. Can't the Queen step in? Enough really is enough now. It's not even funny anymore.
And unfortunately, the only things that Ed Balls has pushed through at the DCSF have always been socialist in the extreme and rolled back Blair's attempts to give schools more freedom.
Moron.
The Boiling Frog. Sir, Surely you are not expecting, on this umpteenth relaunch of the thumping fist, the iron chancellor, the man of vision, taking the hard decisions on whose political career to kill by sick rumour and innuendo (for which he has apologised!)...you are not expecting something NEW? surely not.
This will be dreams and aspirations which will never see the light of Day.
Totally agree Iain. Ed Balls has been a disaster for Education.
I have being spending time at my daughters school and it is clear that there is a lot of concern amongst teachers about the direction of education policy. Ed is a hated figure by teachers because of his 'out of touch', 'aloof' approach.
Not always one to agree with the NUT, many teachers really do disagree with SATs and are openly discussing boycotting them. And some of these teachers cant be called militant.
Ed Balls is clearly more interested in smearing. And he is obviously very busy as a Brown loyalist trying to use all tactics available to him to help his boss.
The day cant come too soon when Ed Balls is rejected by his constituents and has to look for a new day job.
Needless to say that these plans have absolutely no effect on Brown's own constitutents.
Another England-only policy from the anglophobic Scottish PM.
I wonder how many times he will say 'England'? My guess is that he won't mention England.
Well said, Iain.
If Balls can't (won't) do his job he should be fired. Sod tax-payers money going into his infantile machinations.
Balls, Cooper, Harman et al almost make me feel sorry for Brown - except that the control freak incompetent appointed them.
Terry Thomas: "What an absolute sha'r."
The thing about Balls is his astonishing level of self-delusion. He actually believes he is capable of and should be the next Leader of the Labour Party and possibly Prime Minister.
This awful man comes across as self-centred, devious and illiterate as well as being completely unattractive in every way.
If Balls could pronounce English properly it might not be quite so bad but if you listen carefully to what he says he's about as articulate as John Prescott.
Leader of the Party? I don't think so.
I loved an implied suggestion of Balls' next job on Guido's last caption competition: "Would you like fwies with that?".
Iain, that update just about says it all.
Whar's wrong witrh education in Britain? It's all Balls...
I laughed my head off watching Sky News - Brown was making his speech and Sky News cut it and the the sound to watch and listen to Joanna Lumley give evidence to the House of Commons select committee!
TueBlueBlood
'The day cant come too soon when Ed Balls is rejected by his constituents and has to look for a new day job.'
And he'll fail at that, too. As he fails at everything he tries to do.
Toque
He gets round this by saying "the country" or "our country" .
You may be offended by Brown, but so are many Scots hearing him describe England as above . The man's a hypocrite of the first order.
Crap at Education and useless at Child Protection as the recent headlines prove.
The Penguin
Are you still tolerating that Jonathan Cook "Draper" icon? Surely it's time to move on? Both of you.
I'm interested in this phenomenon Iain whereby you offer some moderately credible (it's not entirely unbelievable which is the best way to do such things I've heard) "information" about an opponent, with the ultimate point being that Balls is only interested in smearing opponents.
What is it that you think you're doing here? And what is it that some of your comment crew will run with?
SMEARING is what.
Many ministers no doubt find their present portfolios less interesting than the ones they'd like to have. But that obvious fact's not enough to claim that they must be shirking their current duties. And nor is sending or receiving messages with one eye on the discussion in the room, which you may have heard in essence five times that day already.
At least what you allege, imply, whatever that Balls is up to on his Blackberry i.e. government and/or party business has more to do with what he's paid for than with some semi-secret role with XY and Z corporate, LPP or personal business. That's what we'll be catching Tories at if they ever get power. Or, you know what, we'll just imply it and smear the part-time freakazoids.
Still not seen anything to back up your not withdrawn claims that Tom Watson was copied in to the red rag emails. Or that the January smears were still in train for publication at the end of March shortly before Draper exposed himself, as it were, or at least before Guido outed the January grunge.
The same goes for David Lammy.
giving parents power - what could be more absurd ? I think Boris hit the nail on the head during his "Celebrating first year as Mayor" Q&A
As a father, do you believe parents should be given more control over their children’s education?
Brown/Balls/McShane-another winning team!
Excellent piece from JI on Lisbon.See ConHome.
When all is said and done, he and Mrs Balls, must have been a touch peed orf this weekend, when names to succeed the Earl of Cowdenbeath were being bandied about....
Silence is golden indeed
A grandfatehr told me about his grandson who lives in London and has has a very tough past threee years. He developed somekind ofstress disorder in response to the the threat of knief crime he faced daily going to school. He would not go to school ans spent twso years in his bedroom. The shocking thing is that apparently there are very many children in London just like him. The government is said to building small colleges for these refuseniks where they can gradually get back into school. Ironically after missing out on a lot school these kids do well at GCSE and probably get better results than if thney has stayed in normal school.
This was nicely summarised at the weekend, including the point that Adonis was actually good at his job, as well as Balls being a complete, and utterly disinterested, prat:
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/98634/Take-the-Ed-out-of-Education
"constantly on his Blackberry and just wasn't listening"
He learnt such behaviour from his mentor Brown.
Brown was universally despised by his EU opposite numbers as Chancellor.
He loved delivering long lectures about sound finance at meetings(ha, ha) but when anyone else spoke would then take his head set off and either fall asleep or gurn and laugh to himself.
It goes withiut saying that after 12 years this Government still haven't got it; It is all about perceived delivery on, Education, Health care and the Economy, are they better than they were in 1997?
The answer is;
Education = 50% of pupils on finishing their schooling cannot read nor write properly.
Health care = People are afraid to go into an NHS hospital for fear they come out with something worse than that which took them in.
Economy = Basketcase.
Still the Government thinks an announcement a day will fool the electorate. We no longer listen or watch anymore, for this Government the majority of the electorate are on deathwatch.
Just another meaningless and valueless New Labour sound bite. It will join the hundreds of others on the giant heap of unfulfilled promises and aspirations.
Are there really any voters around who will believe or be influenced by this interminable series of spins?
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