Balls

Ed Balls, Brown's economic advisor at the end of 2006 talking about Britain's banks:
'Nothing should be done to effect the light regulatory regime...'

Of course, the argument then was that the Labour government was putting too much pressure on the City and the banks. Labour was defending itself against Tory attacks that the government was too intent on interfering. In other words, despite the sound and fury you could not get a cigarette paper between the parties when it came to their policies and attitudes towards the City and the banks.

No wonder the public think its a joke when both the main parties now howl for the Diamond Geezer's guts (see previous blogs on Mr Bob Diamond.)

But there is another depressing aspect to the whole thing.

Blair was known for fawning to the wealthy. He still does. The Labour leadership, (sons and daughters of lawyers; public school there or thereabouts; a sprinkling of right wing TU time-wasters) have always had an odd relationship to 'the money.' The odd thing is that they don't want to fight it. Balls probably views city types through a prism of intellectual contempt. He probably has more time for his dustman - in an abstract kind of way. At his dinner parties where he holds court he will tell jokes about dumb billionaires (although he'll have some exceptions - a few 'smart cookies' that he has met. Up close, Labour politicians are always amazed and taken by the way the ruling class rules.)

My dad had it in for chauffeurs. In those days jobs were plentiful; but someone he said 'has decided to become a bloody chauffeur.' He though that they were 'toadies of the working class.'

It is difficult to see Messrs. Balls and co as being anything much to do with the working class - but they were - and are -toadies.