Ed Balls deployed one of Michael Gove's favoured Commons routines against him today, during a debate on the education provisions contained in yesterdays Queen's Speech.
"First question - name the type of enzyme that digests stains containing fats. Sounds quite difficult to me, do you have an answer?," the children's secretary asked his Conservative shadow.
"Let's try another one. Explain how a fluoride atom can change into a fluoride ion.
As Gove remained seated and silent, Balls continued: "You're well-known as an erudite and intelligent man. What's the answer?"
The children's secretary admitted: "These are really hard. I don't know the answers."
He then went onto challenge his opposite number with a question from a maths exam. Reading from the paper he asked: "Work out three and three quarters minus one and two fifths. Do you want to try?"
When Gove again failed to respond Balls insisted these were "hard questions in tough exams, which our young people are doing very well".
In previous Commons debates the shadow children's secretary has raised laughter from the opposition benches by referencing seemingly simple exam questions when criticising the quality of testing and assessment in schools.
"Which is healthier, sausages in batter or grilled fish?" he asked MPs in March, quoting from a GCSE biology paper.
And in his speech to the Conservative party conference this year Gove said: " In GCSE science we ask students if nurses leave the room during X-ray sessions in hospital for health reasons, or because their mobile phone might melt, or because they might get a tan.
"We ask students in GCSE science which is a better argument for nuclear power - creating jobs or creating toxic waste."
Responding to the children's secretary in the debate today, Gove said the Queen's Speech had been "pure balls", and had the secretary of state's fingers all over it.
He said that Balls was more interested in drawing dividing lines between Labour and the Conservatives than in improving the country's education system.
And he questioned whether Balls would be able to fulfil all the pledges on education spending he had promised.
Balls' was the 'Katie Price' of government, Gove said. "All he is interested in is being on the front pages".
And having "massively inflated what he's got to offer" the secretary of state had been left "dangerously over exposed".
