Ed Balls, Former Labour MP (2005-2015) HARDtalk

Welcome to HARDtalk, with me, Stephen Sackur.

When elected politicians are booted out by the voters,

there's no safety net to soften their fall.

My guest today has the bruises to prove it.

Ed Balls was one of the key players of the UK Labour Party's era

of political dominance under those partners and rivals Blair and Brown.

He was a formidable political operator,

whose ambition was to lead his party.

He failed in that, and last year lost his seat,

as the unravelling of the Labour Party began in earnest.

How does a political heavyweight make sense of failure?

Good to be here. Do you have the feeling that your political career

did end in failure? I lost my seat, so of course. Every political career

tends to end in some kind of value. You get going out as a government

blues your constituency. The thing in politics is always to look back

and say, are there things that are different than they would have been?

Did you make the difference? I can look back and say they are really

important things that happened because I was there. I read it was a

failure, it was important time for the country and may -- I don't

think. Did you make the most of incredible opportunities that you

and Tony Blair's Labour and your Labour had? He won elections with an

amazing mandate, but when we talk about the achievements, they were

limited. I don't think there will limited at all, but we did not make

the most of them. We always look back on life and think could you

have done things differently or better? Did we make mistakes? In

politics as in life, you always make some mistakes, but where there are

some we could have avoided? Of course. But we did not join the

single currency, which was an important decision for Brent. We

introduce the minimum national wage, and we made the NHS strong and

secure the future -- for Britain. We changed the way things happen with

sexuality in gay marriage. We did things politically that a flustered.

It was a big reforming of men. You left the government in a state which

just a few years later sees it unravelling, and is one of its

members of parliament said to me, Frank Field, in a death spiral. That

is part of the legacy. If you look around the world at the Republicans,

Democrats, the Labour Party and the Conservative Party, what is

happening in France, the rise of Marine Le Pen, there are bigger

trends and challenges happening, and rightly we did not address some of

those challenges. But if you look at the rise of Donald Trump and what is

happening to the Republican Party, that is similar, in you constantly

say that the crisis in global politics in the developed world at

the moment MBP and on the door of Gordon Brown or Tony Blair. -- at

the moment. How is it that 13 years in power, and far from making a more

equitable society, inequality as defined by this, located

coefficient, actually rose and your watch -- complicated. If you look at

the history from the mid-19 70s, he saw a huge rise in inequality that

happened in every country. You didn't it got worse. If you look up

until 2010, we arrested it. We slowed down the rise in inequality,

but not by enough. If you look at the top and, as Peter medicine

famously said, your party was intensely relaxed about the rich

getting ever richer -- Peter Mandelson. That was a symbol of your

time in office. That was not particular Labour problem, it has

happened around the world. We addressed it in the relationship in

the middle and bottom. We had a huge reduction in child poverty. We got

more people into work than ever before, for the financial crisis.

You are right that the gap between the middle and the top rose

inexorably over that period, and it wasn't something we ever found a way

to address. Why? This is really important. Not long ago we had

Thomas Picardy talking about the corrosive impact of inequality. You

hear it from politicians like Barack Obama. Inequality has become the

watchword for the problems of the rich today. You had 13 years in

power to address it, and you are supposed to be a brilliant

economist. Why didn't you address a? Is not an easy solution to the

globalisation of talent. Whether you are talking about lawyers or bankers

or footballers of fashion models of film actors, as the world globalise

us, they can perform and do that in any part of the world, it pulls up

their income on what they can get in the world marketplace and head to

the average in any country. -- compared to the average. There is no

global government to put a cap on that. No, but I come back to the

point that some of the things she failed to do now being addressed by

a new brand of socialist in the Labour Party, and talking about

Jeremy Corbyn, but his challenger in the battle for the leadership, Owen

Smith, is talking about a wealth tax and saying if we are serious as

socialists about redistribution, there we have to get serious about

imposing much greater tax burdens on the most wealthy. And you would

never ever do that. I want to know why not? We did it in our last

manifesto, talking about a way to tax housing wealth. You didn't do

anything about it. We didn't win the election. We didn't exactly was in

our manifesto to do so. There was no clear intent to go after the richest

in society and tackle this problem of redistribution. Many people would

say we lost the election because we looked like we were trying to do too

much to clobber the rich without doing enough to make the economy

grow, and back aspiration. You can argue it both ways. You have

encapsulated the struggle within the Labour Party today, at the

membership has decided that the Gordon Brown and Tony Blair approach

to politics, which is near a liberal or Tory Lite, some have said, is not

authentic enough for a centre-left party in the 20 century. The voters

take a different view. In my constituency in Morley and Outwood,

there will Liberal Democrat from 2010 who voted Conservative as they

were not short a trusted the Labour government. -- they were not sure

they trusted. The reason we didn't win the last election is because we

went left-wing and off, some said. But that is totally out of touch

with reality. We did not win people's trust. To make the economy

stronger and there. I agree with you on tackling inequality. While tax is

hard. For decades, people have advocated it and found it very hard

to do in no way which would... To tax wealth is part of what any

government to try to do, whether that is the inheritance or housing

wealth, in end, I think we lost the election because people did not

think we would do enough to make the stronger rather than just the

redistribute. I want to move away from policy-making, which was your

main concern in politics, and talk about the way politics is done, the

practice of politics. Do you think you were a good politician? I wasn't

a perfect politician. I don't think anyone gets ten out of ten in every

category. I made mistakes and all politicians do. The politicians try

to learn from mistakes, wrote a consensus, show their values and

objectives are translated into action and have people say,

actually, what they have done is sufficiently good and we should

stick with it. I did some good things the past those test, not

everything. Why do think those inside the policy-making machine in

number ten found to toxic? Some said they could not stand to be in the

room with you? When you with the special advisor to the Treasury,

Gordon Brown's sidekick essentially, why do some people inside, ten so

your behaviour was unacceptable. I'm not sure who these people are, and

you would have to tell me names. Peter medicine. The unbridled

contempt that he had for Gordon Brown and others was destructive.

There were times when... There were times when we too heavy. On the

issue of the euro, when we fought hard to make sure we did not join

the euro, there were times when we too heavy-handed. But that is a

piece of learning. But it is not bullying. I've lost count of the

number of times people said they could not bear to be in the room

with Ed Balls, his rudeness, his bearing of grudges, and reinforce

and reflect the West expects of tanning Blair, is the quote -- worst

aspects of Tony Blair. Bullies try to pick on weaker people and nearly

again. At moments, I spoke true to power. Gordon Brown was the Prime

Minister and more powerful, but it was our job to save from time to

time, that is the wrong thing to do and we should not go down that road.

That is not bullying. Sometimes we were to intellectually steamrolling,

not bullies. Living side bullying, where was your focus? We know from

leaked documents into those 11 that Gordon Brown, you and a lot of other

people around him, you spent an awful lot of time planning how to

get Tony Blair out and get Gordon Brown into number ten -- in 2011.

Those meetings went on and on. What was that about? Those meetings were

with Tony Blair. Before the 2005 election. There was a discussion

about how to win the election which some senior figures said maybe Tony

Blair would need to announce he was going to stand aside. In the end, it

did not come to that, but they were seen together in that election

campaign in a close way. There was this project for Bob, which you

obviously know all about, because you were all about it -- Volvo. Tony

Blair was not part of project Volvo. They were a serious of meetings

which involved Alastair Campbell, myself, Ed Miliband and others, to

talk about how we would manage the transition from Tony Blair to Gordon

Brown, and the project Volvo you talk about, giving Tony was going to

stand down, and giving the expectation was that Gordon Brown

will take over, there was work done within the Treasury about how Gordon

Brown would then pick up the reins and carry on. The idea that was

somehow a secret attempt to unseat Tony Blair is untrue. It was being

done with the knowledge of Tony Blair and his team. Won you it

badly, because so many people around Tony Blair got the impression you

were secretly plotting to getting out as soon as possible. We were

openly having common sessions with Tony Blair and his team about the

transition. We called it a stable and orderly transition, which we

managed to get. There will always be some people who were not on either

side of what was going on who will throw around these allegations. But

the people on the inside you what we were doing. Of course there were

differences and arguments because Gordon but Tony should go more

quickly, and he wanted to stay longer. Ed Miliband and Pat McFadden

did meetings with ministers across the divide to work on policy

together. The attempt was to make a cohesive. Let's bring back to to the

Labour Party is today. Any people feel that corrosive rivalry between

Blair and Brown, and you would not denied there was a robbery, in the

end, it got the party elite looking so much at the tactical battles that

they did not actually look at the strategic long-term -- there was a

robbery. A respected analysts said recently the party's elite over the

years gained power from Labour's traditional structures, centralised

significant authority in the leader and entourage, and even as the

party's oligarchs preached the virtues, they fought one another

with shameless ferocity. I don't think Tony and Gordon did enough to

reach out to the party. They had the national policy Forum, an attempt to

build cohesion in the party. In my book, I actually talked a lot about

some of the lessons from this period. I say first of all Warren

Brown and Tony Blair were always much closer than people understood

-- Gordon Brown. But with the Tories being weak and the whole issue being

the succession from Blair to Brown, there were times when the prism of

politics became about the fight for the succession. If you take the

National Health Service and the argument about foundation hospitals,

there was a deliberate attempt by people around Tony to say because

Gordon will not back that reform, he is therefore antireform and should

not be allowed to take over. It was all about the succession and prism

of politics. Are you saying that was destructive or village? -- foolish?

The idea it was driven by Gordon Brown or his team is not true.

Let's not fight those battles but I am trying to talk about whether you

would acknowledge - we are talking about mistakes, the way the Labour

Party at the top handled itself is related to Jeremy Corbyn's message

today that from now on we let the neighbours decide, it is the mass

membership of the party that will drive it forward and he is even

talking about members rolling integers the shadow cabinet. Jeremy

Corbyn is trying to offer something different for Labour members.

Political parties are unusual because they are not like a tennis

club or a membership society, they have a responsibility to make sure

that the views of the members are listened to and taken on board and

they have a responsibility to voters. You can have hundreds of

thousands of members but you have millions of voters and it is the job

of people who are directly elected by the voters to make sure they are

in touch with what voters think as well as what members think. There is

always in the Labour Party tension between people who said members

should run everything and the members of parliament who say it is

not just about members but voters as well. When Jeremy Corbyn in should

be driven by the members there is a river danger in that. You can lose

touch as a political party. You can have a members meeting where 2000

people cheer you very loudly but it doesn't translate into election

victories unless voters are on-site and Jeremy Butler problem at the

moment is for all his cheery members when it comes to the voters they are

not supporting him which is why we are so behind on the polls --

cheering. We might come back to that but in your book you talk about

mistakes and you say that you know post- political office it is

possible to be honest about mistakes made. One of your biggest mistakes

was when you were responsible as Secretary of State for children,

essentially for education and childcare, and you have to face a

horrible, horrible situation in north London went a very young

child, a baby had been killed under the care of its mother and her up at

no and another individual -- and her partner. And you took the decision

after an investigation to fire the director of children's services in

that Haringey council. That was handled badly, wasn't it? No, it was

the right decision, and in the same circumstances I would make the same

decision against. What happened in the court subsequently, the court

said we made a legal procedural mistake. And I fully accept that. On

the substance of the decision, what had happened was there had been a

tragic death and a public outcry. I for three weeks had held off as you

said that they in media waiting for the Independent report I

commissioned. -- aiding media. If the report arrived on my desk and

said it was not the result of the Haringey council would have backed

them 100% but when the report came it was devastating about leadership

failures. I would defy you if you read the report or anyone in the

same circumstance to make a different decision. It was the only

way to keep children safe in Haringey and animate the right

decision. We will get to the court in a minute but you say in the book

quite clearly, one newspaper editor threatened me saying I had the power

to remove shoesmith and they would come to me if I didn't. Who was

that? I am not going to start talking about the individual names

of private conversations but... What does it say about your relationship

with senior figures, editors in the national press, that they felt free

and able to say that sort of thing to you? What kind of relationship

did you have with them? If you are a cabinet minister and you have a

telephone call from an editor, you take the call and I took the called.

This wasn't any old call, it was someone saying, if you don't fire

that woman, we will come after you. And I said that is an unacceptable

thing to say to me, I am not going to continue this phone call, I said

I am not going to make decisions on that basis top weight and then you

fired... No, I commissioned an independent report -- on that basis.

And then you fired... If it said there wasn't... The bottom line is

you never heard her version of events because you didn't call her

in to have a chat with her after the report was issued, and the court,

hang on, when the court decided you had behaved from week and gave her

600 and something thousand pounds and a settlement, the court said,

and I am quoting here, it seems that the making of a public sacrifice to

deflect press and public obloquy remains an accepted expedient of

public administration - that was a slight directly at you. It was not

at all. That was not the way the decision was made. There was an

independent report. She and others in Haringey were spoken to as part

of the Independent report. When the independent report came it was

devastating. The legal advice to me from

devastating. The legal advice to me the civil service was I should not

meet with Shoesmith directly because she was a member of Haringey and my

duty under the children act to keep children safe allowed me to remove

her... The court said you did it wrong. The court record is you got

it plain wrong. A set a moment ago that procedure really not seeing

Shoesmith which I was advised not to do, was a mistake but as I said in

the book if I had seen Shoesmith it would have made no impact on my

decision because the independent report was devastating about

leadership and management daily at Haringey and on the basis that my

job was not to project any individual's job but to keep

children safe in Haringey, the only way to do that was to make the

decision to change the leadership, that is what I did and I would do it

against. Left and with a thought, one more thought about Labour and

where it is today and where it is going. It strikes me as very

interesting that the Conservative Party, having got rid of David

Cameron, has put a woman in the leadership arty... Not for the first

time. Not for the first time - not for the first time. Labour has never

had a female leader. Yvette Cooper could have been a very realistic

proposition for leading the Labour Party and I'm not thinking about

2015 but when she could have run in 2010 and she didn't because you and

she got together and decided you should run. Do you regret that?

Well, I said to her in 2010 that if she wanted to run then I would stand

aside and she should run because I thought it would be better for the

Labour Party if she had run rather than me and I think she had a really

good chance of winning, certainly a better chance than me but she made a

decision that it was the wrong type of and it was too early she felt the

children for two -- were too long for her to do it and she said no it

is not my time and on that basis I did it. I think it would have been

better if she had but she didn't. In 2015.. Did you say to her, I take

your point, it is not my business, but it is a look that children am I

can handle the children... We are an equal partnership, go for it if

politically you want to go for it and I will be the main carer Tom did

you say that? Of course but in 2015 when I lost my seat, and even if I

had stayed in parliament, that was the time she was going to run and I

would have absolutely done all the things you have just set and I was

hoping she would win and I thought she would be the best candidate to

win. But back in 2010 it was her choice and was that for a woman in

politics it was different for the man. She felt that while I felt that

I could manage the job and have young children, she didn't feel that

she could, she thought she needed the children to be older, that was

her call. I think it would be better for Labour if she stood in 2010 but

in the end in a relationship in a partnership, in a marriage, you have

to respect the other's view and her view was she didn't want to, if she

wanted to she would have run. And that Lee she still has a job,

political job, she is an MP... Sitting on a football club and doing

all these things. It is all entertaining but I suspect there is

a part of you that is deeply frustrated right now. Well, of

course because it is such an important, dangerous, unstable time

in the world and I know from the inside how purposeful being a

politician and member of the government can be, purposeful

individually, solving a constituent's difficulty, purposeful

as a cabinet minister trying to forge a way forward for the nation,

and I experienced that and that is not currently my life and may never

be again - probably won't be. You say never be but you're not rolling

it out? I think you never say never but in all likelihood I have had my

chance and we should always look forward. Do I miss that? Yes. It is

very special. The reason I backed her is... Does she have a chance,

that purpose again? She is envious of me being on a dancing show and I

am envious of her being a politician with a chance to be in government

again, of course. Ed Balls, thanks for being on HARDtalk thank you very

much. This week has certainly delivered

on warmth and humidity but for many it has struggled to deliver

on sunshine so far. Looking back, you can see

there was quite a lot of cloud.