Ed Balls, former economic advisor to Gordon Brown and current secretary of state for children, schools and families, came out with a frankly staggering statement reported today by the BBC.

Addressing a Labour audience he said the financial crisis will be “more extreme and more serious than that of the 1930s.”

Balls didn’t mince words,  “The reality is that this is becoming the most serious global recession for, I’m sure, over 100 years as it will turn out.”

What was he thinking?

Where communications is all important in politics how could he be so irresponsible?  It is not really the most reassuring messaging.  Well it is not messaging, it is just blunt.  Downing Street attempted to play down the comments.

Speaking after Gordon Brown used the word “depression” during prime minister’s questions (later explained away as a slip of the tongue) you would think all government ministers would be watching their words carefully.  The Labour communications team would be ensuring a clear, honest but confidence building message, well as much as is possible.

Now we have a situation where there has been a big balls up, which will make brown the colour of the week.

Tags: Balls, Recession

This entry was posted on Monday, February 9th, 2009 at 9:52 pm and is filed under Crisis PR, Poor practise, Recession, messaging. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.