Timing of the Balls leak proves it’s a damp squib

“Seemingly Blair and Brown didn't get on. Rumour has it that Brown wanted Blair's job”, deadpanned LabourList editor Mark Ferguson.

Those looking for further evidence that leaked memos from Ed Balls, published by the Telegraph this morning, are insubstantial need not look beyond the issue of timing. Michael White muses thusly:

"Did the Tories find the stuff and save it for a rainy day? The coalition is, after all, taking a beating this week. Or did a disgruntled official send them (sell them?) to the Torygraph, which picked the timing to suit its commercial needs (and why not?) rather than its political agenda?"

In politics, as in life, there’s nothing worse than blowing your load early, leaving your audience underwhelmed. Over at Political Scrapbook there are a handful of stories we’ve held back for maximum impact at some point in the future (offering regular sacrifices to the reshuffle gods that a certain Tory PPS will be promoted).

If you were sitting on a cache of truly damaging documents, why release them now? The answer is that you wouldn’t – and so it follows that the material is not damaging.

If the file came, as Balls has implied, from within the Department for Education, White rightly suggests this is mere chaff the Tories have used to detract from a bad few days. And if this is really a shot across Balls’ bows from a Labour colleague, why not keep that powder dry until PLP bonhomie is genuinely stretched?

While further “revelations” in tomorrow’s Telegraph may provide me with an exfoliating egg mask, what we have seen so far is old news and of limited interest to the 99% of people who think an early day motion involves a visit to the toilet at eight in the morning.

On that note, I must now rush off to investigate a breaking story. Apparently, a bear has been spotted entering a wooded area.