Ed Balls is looking for sympathy with claims in the Mirror this morning that he was bullied at school

“I was teased and bullied right through my school years about my name and stammer and it was merciless.

I wouldn’t say it reduced me to floods of tears but it was really tough.”

Guido has personal testimony from his former school-mates that he was indeed bullied because he was as insufferable then as he is now.  Balls also claims that the Tory high-command threw a lot of money at his constituency during the general election because they fear him most. Like his claim that his personal share of the vote only went down because of the BNP, it doesn’t stand scrutiny. His opponent raised a lot of money online because people disliked him so much, his vote went down for the same reason.  The BNP actually saw their vote go down in his now ultra-marginal constituency.

The truth is that Balls winning the leadership of the Labour Party would be cheered in CCHQ and Cowley Street.  Balls polls the worst negative rating of any front bencher, from any party.