Ball’s games

What kind of game are Ed Balls and his allies playing? The Guardian's Allegra Stratton has a few thoughts, and none of them positive. The Schools Secretary's opposition to voting reform (after years of professed support) is filling blogs today as we await a crucial meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party. The New Statesman have warned that "conservative Labour tribalists" are on the march,  and ready and willing to knock back change. 

Surely the Labour Party doesn't want to shoot itself in the foot over electoral reform tonight. But a small group of MPs with deeply reactionary views risk alienating a whole group of voters who expected a big response to last years expenses crisis. 

Labour might feel it’s got a response for a broken economy, but without electoral reform there’s little evidence they’ve got anything serious to say about our broken politics. Perhaps Balls thinks he's got the message right on the taxes and jobs to run into an election. He doesn't want to "muddy the water" with something as frivolous as making our MPs accountable.

But after last year we'd remind Balls "it's the democracy, stupid".