Balls' ache

Lobbydog thought no-one had woken up with a worse headache than his today – opening that last bottle of white was a mistake.

But after reading the papers it seems our Children’s Secretary might have a bigger ache, albeit with a different cause, and will need more than an aspirin to solve his problem.

The Sunday Times writes that Ed “Damian McBride’s behaviour is inexcusable” Balls used the former special adviser himself to smear cabinet colleagues in his pursuit of the Labour leadership.

Balls has branded the allegations, made by a whistleblower, as “completely fabricated and malevolent nonsense”.

The word “malevolent” leaves a litigious whiff in the air. So for The Sunday Times to go ahead and print anyway means they are very sure of their source.

If true, while the story grates, it doesn’t surprise. But one part of the whistleblower’s tale did read rather oddly.

The source claimed Brown was “strangely naïve” and didn’t know what Balls was doing.

If that is the case it would point to a highly unruly situation at Number 10.

If it isn’t, then it almost feels like a cack-handed attempt to protect Brown from association with the story.

Either way the whole thing will serve to knock Labour further in the polls – according to The Sunday Telegraph the party dropped five points on the back of the smeargate scandal.

NB: Until now Lobbydog had referred to “smeargate” as “emailgate”, but will now bow to pressure in the interest of people knowing what I’m talking about.

As the Appalling Strangeness points out, it should be called “The McBride Scandal” anyway, because always sticking “gate” on the end of everything is just silly.