Ed's First Balls Up

It's been a good day for Fantasy Government. First up Jacqui and Peter get it together for a migrant workers' cock-up, and now Ed Balls is on the scoreboard following news of the Schools' ministry's climbdown on schools budget surpluses.

Not so long ago the government was clear. There was going to be a 5% levy on excess cash held by schools, supposedly amounting to a whopping £1.7bn.

Now, however, Ed and his subordinates have decided it's not worth a big fight with the unions, so they're giving this one a miss.

Policy U-turns can earn anything between five and ten points in the Fantasy Government game. This is one of the smaller ones, so we'll give Ed five points.

If you'd picked Ed for you Fantasy Cabinet, you too would have earned youself five points on the back of this news. and if you'd had Jacqui Smith and Peter Hain as well, you'd have picked up nine points today alone.

There are three simple steps to playing Fantasy Government:

Step 1 - read the rules
Step 2 - see all the cock-ups that have earned points so far
Step 3 - pick your team from the list of ministers.