And another thing…

ON THE way out of the House of Commons chamber following Prime Minister’s Questions this afternoon, David Cameron said to Ed Balls across the despatch box: “You were quiet today!”

Nothing ususual with that, you might say. After all, Ed has been known, occasionally, to have been rather – shall we say, enthusiastic? – in his support for the PM at these sessions. And today he wasn’t, hence Dave’s remark.

What was unusual about the quip is that twenty minutes earlier, as Dave was getting his backside roundly kicked up and down the gangway by the Clunking Fist, he responded to Labour heckles by pointing to Ed and shouting: “It is not just Back Benchers, Mr. Speaker – the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families is up to his old tricks again!”

Now, given that Ed had deliberately avoided twitching a muscle as he sat there on the Treasury bench, this was unexpected. And Cameron’s words at the end of the encounter confirmed that even Dave knew Ed had been on his best behaviour.

So why did the ‘Leader’ of the Opposition accuse the Children’s Secretary of being “up to his old tricks again”?

Simples: it was written down on the notes in front of him.

It didn’t matter that the accusation was falsely made – the TV audience would simply have assumed Ed was mooning him or whatever. It was on Dave’s notes, so he had to say it, regardless of whether it was justified.

Prime Minister-in-waiting, eh?

I LIKE Dizzy, I really do. It’s why I placed him at number 2 in my Top Ten Blogs a few days ago.

But a recent post isn’t just factually wrong — it’s decidedly misleading.

He wrote a post entitled Another misleading half-truth from Ed Balls: all the usual libertarian paranoia about the surveillance society, specifically the allegation in The Sunday Express that problem families were to be put under 24-hour CCTV monitoring. Ed responded to the Express piece by Twitter, saying:

The idea we are planning to put CCTV in families homes is complete and utter nonsense.

Fair enough: the “sin bin” idea is about offering anti-social families round-the-clock support, which, of course, is nothing to do with surveillance.

Any road up, I was intrigued by Dizzy’s additional comments to this:

I was puzzled by the second quote in the first paragraph — “CCTV in the place where identified families live”. Crikey, thought I — we’ve been found out! Our plans to place CCTV cameras in everyone’s home while forcibly taking their DNA and making them sing the European national anthem have come undone…

When I asked Dizzy on his comments thread where the quote came from, he replied:

I didn’t say it was a direct quote from the document. The document refers to “core residential units” where families receive “24-hour support and supervision from staff in accommodation provided by the project. So that’s 24 hour surveillance of a family, in the place where they live.

So no mention of CCTV, then? I responded:

If it’s not a direct quote, why did you put it in quotation marks? That usually means you’re quoting something or someone.

Which I think is a fair question. Dizzy disagreed:

Tom, quotes do not mean a direct quote “necesarily”, they can be used to “emphasise” and it is especially useful when placing distinct phrases within a sentence, its a literary version of doing that annoying thing with your “fingers” when you want to express something.

I guess I could change it to italics for you if you want?

Well, yes, anything that makes it clear it was an opinion from you, Dizzy, and not a government publication, which is how your original post reads.

To sum up: Dizzy’s attack on Ed Balls is entirely without any foundation. He’s attacking Ed for (rightly) contradicting misinformation published in the Sunday Express. Dizzy has no additional information to back up the Express’s fantasies. And I’m sorry, Dizzy, but putting your argument in quotation marks is “a misleading practice”, as you might (but didn’t) say.

And that’s a shame, because Dizzy is a great blogger; when he researches something and publishes it, I tend to take it seriously. But this post has undermined his reputation a bit, and I think that’s a shame. He should stick to the facts.

SOME bloggers have been unfairly unkind to the Schools Secretary, it transpires.

Guido mocked Ed Balls when this update appeared in his Twitter feed:

Yes, it’s naff and yes, as Guido points out, the grammar is appalling and not what you’d expect from the man in charge of the nation’s schools.

So it’s a relief that it turns out Ed didn’t post it. Neither did any of the many others who have fallen for this spam scam. Any Twitterer who clicks on the link in the Tweet will find their own feed featuring exactly the same message, purporting to be from them. Except it’s not.