When Ed Ball’s said he hardly knew “Mr McBride” how we all laughed, the Daily Telegraph’s then newly appointed chief political commentator, Ben Brogan, put the widely held view succintly: “liar liar, pants on fire”.

Balls is now disowning his “Tory Cuts, Labour Invests” strategy, briefing that the whole idea is down to that no good Shaun Woodward.   Yet it was under his own name that a circular went out to Labour activists attacking Cameron as “Mr 10% Cuts”.  When Fraser Nelson called Blinky a liar about Labour’s own cuts, Balls went bonkers, telling Nelson to withdraw the article and calling his Spectator editor, Matthew d’Ancona, to rant about the article.

God knows how he will respond to the LabourList article calling on him to drop ‘the dishonest “Tories cut, Labour invests” mantra‘. Written by Brian Barder, who has been a Labour Party member for half-a-century, it is hyper-critical of the Balls line of attack, calling it dishonest and ham-fisted:

Labour promises actually to increase government spending, appear both dishonest and, perhaps worse, obviously and simple-mindedly dishonest.  This ham-fisted campaign is a tragedy for Labour… In … the disastrous circular, I suggested … the current line [is] depriving the government and the party of a different and much more positive line which would have the incidental advantages of being both truthful and credible…

Ouch. Ed Balls wrote for LabourList only last week about discrimination in the playground. He’ll be throwing his toys out of the pram this morning…