ONLY Labour can guarantee the future investment in overhauling Bolton’s ageing secondary schools, says Schools Secretary Ed Balls.

Mr Balls, who was in Bolton last weekend to watch Aston Villa’s win at the Reebok, said there was a clear choice for people on May 6.

He said: “If we are reelected, then we can guarantee our commitment to Building Schools for the Future and the investment in Bolton’s schools.

“It is a real choice for people and I think when they are sat around the kitchen table, deciding which way to vote, they will look at those choices.

“I can guarantee that funding in schools will rise faster than inflation over the next three years and it would be short-sighted not to take the chance of a generation to make positive changes to Bolton’s secondary schools.”

Mr Balls, a key ally of Gordon Brown, also revealed that he felt the Prime Minister was wrong not to call an election in 2007.

But he said: “It is never going to be easy and I was one of the people who felt he should have called the election then.

“But look at the situation we are in terms of the opinion polls now— one of the polls this week has a gap of just four points which would have been unimaginable last year.”

Comparing the mediafriendly image of David Cameron with Mr Brown’s less press-savy style, Mr Balls said he believed the forthcoming TV debates would be about policy and values and not who had “the nicest smile”.

He said: “People always say that David Cameron would be the person to go to the pub with. But you have to ask, while you are down the pub, who would you want looking after the country?

“Gordon and Alistair Darling have made some very big decisions on the economy which have been criticised — but there is less unemployment than feared as we are coming out of the recession.

“Some of the Conservatives’ plans are unfair and reckless and people will need to look at those and decide if that is what they want for their children and their grandchildren in future years.”