Now Ed Balls says that even the cuts proposed by Labour at the election were too ambitious

By Jonathan Isaby

Gordon Brown's reputation for sound economic management was blasted out of the water some time ago.

But it is worth remembering that for many years his loyal henchman at the Treasury was one Ed Balls, as the picture here reminds us.

It is a screengrab from a BBC film - available online here - which features some delicious archive footage of Balls from his younger days and at his wedding to Yvette Cooper, as well as an interview just conducted by the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg.

And the Labour leadership contender has taken that opportunity to show that he too has no grasp of the seriousness of the debt problem which the last Labour government has bequeathed the country.

He says in reference to Labour's pledge made before the general election:

"Halving the deficit in four years by cutting public spending, I think, was a mistake.

"In government at the time in 2009 I always accepted collective responsibility, but at the time in 2009 I thought the pace of deficit reduction through spending cuts was not deliverable, I didn't think it could have been done."

Watch it all via the BBC website.