It’s not the internet – its Balls!

Ed Balls A FASCINATING insight into the workings of Government is provided by the right-wing Spectator magazine in its blog ‘Coffee House’.

It tells how Cabinet Minister Ed Balls, a close confidante of Prime Minister Gordon Brown, rang up the magazine’s political editor, Fraser Nelson, to complain about an earlier article which had branded the Children’s Secretary “a liar”.

It is not for us to pronounce on the rights and wrongs of the complex dispute over debt between the pair. Readers can make up their own minds.

But it is quite astonishing that Labour’s Mr Balls, who is in charge of the nation’s schools after all, should take the time and trouble to phone up a Conservative journalist and angrily demand that a blog post be withdrawn. Allegedly.

It may reveal something of the judgement and mind-set of those who wield power on our behalf that such tactics can even be considered appropriate. Whatever happened to freedom of the press?

Secondly, and much more importantly, it also reveals that senior figures in the Government have still failed to come to terms with the power of the internet. They just don’t get it.

As Nelson rightly observes:

Five years ago, you could lie like this on the radio and get away with it. Space is tight in newspapers, no one would devote hundreds of words and graphs – as we did – to expose a lie for what is. But the world has changed now. Blogging has brought new, hyper scrutiny. Blogs have infinite space, and people with endless energy, to expose political lying – no matter how small. Your claims can be instantly counter-checked, by anyone. If you stretch the truth, you can be exposed – by anyone. And if you plan to base a whole election campaign on a lie, as you apparently intend to do, then you’re in for a rude awakening.

Whether Balls is in fact ‘lying’ is, for the moment, besides the point. What matters is that the internet has opened up politicians to intense public scrutiny by the crusading, the campaigning and even the slightly deranged. Politicians cannot control it. Nor should they try.

But they must learn to deal with it.

Sensibly.

Share and Enjoy:

Published on: July 2, 2009

Filed in: Digital communications, Media relations

Bookmark this post:

4 comments

Write comment - TrackBack - RSS Comments

Comment by Stephen Newton at 9:50 am on July 9, 2009
You seem to be saying that even if Balls wasn’t lying, it’s okay for Nelson to call him a liar, because he’s writing for the internet.

I don’t follow that at all. Writing for the internet doesn’t mean you should aspire to even lower standards than print journalists. Far from being ‘beside the point’ as you claim, whether Balls was lying or not is key.

They may be an argument that it’s unseemly for a minister to make such a big deal of it, but that’s beside the point.
Comment by Tony at 10:49 am on July 9, 2009
That’s a rather lofty interpretation of the post Stephen – I don’t think that’s the point at all.
The simple point being made is that the internet opens up politicians to greater public scrutiny than ever before.
They need to live with that and be able to deal with it sensibly.
A Cabinet Minister ringing up some blogger to rant at him and demand that he withdraw a post, as if we lived in some kind of elective dictatorship, is pretty silly behaviour.
Given what we know about Ed Balls personal behaviour and tactics as Brown’s sidekick makes me think he has gotten away lightly with being called a liar.
Nelson’s original post also called him a bully. I don’t think Balls could sue on that either.
Comment by Wanda at 11:08 am on July 9, 2009
As a print journalist, I would like to inform Mr Newton that I aspire to incredibly high standards.
And I deliver them.
Has Mr Newton ever worked as a proper journalist or is he one of these guys who stands on the sidelines, being all superior?
Comment by John at 6:05 pm on July 9, 2009
It’s not about lying, at all. If Nelson is wrong, then no doubt Balls will sue the Spectator.
If he doesn’t, then we can all draw our own conclusions.
He either can’t be bothered, dismisses it as a Tory smear, or fears he would lose.
Or a combination of all three.
I think you are right in saying politicians need to deal with the internet a bit more effectively.
Personally I think the internet is an empowering tool in the right hands.
Sometimes it gets into the hands of self-obsessed know it alls who just like the sound of their own typing.
Other times, it can be used to improve the sum of human knowledge.
You pays your money….