IT’S TEMPTING TO SEE the latest career twist of Ed Balls, the former Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, as a wider metaphor for the catastrophe besetting the Labour Party. Mr Balls has forgotten the calamitous political failure of losing his Morley and Outwood seat and signed up for Strictly Come Dancing. As hopeful career u-turns go, it’s very Martine McCutcheon goes to Hollywood. Any youthful dreams Mr Balls held of becoming the next Aneurin Bevan, alas, have disappeared.
Though a bright, affable, well-educated (Oxford and Harvard) and politically ambitious man, there was something about Ed Balls’ chunky demeanour in defeat that conjured up an image of the luckless politico sitting on his settee, wearing a frayed Fruit of the Loom t-shirt and old pyjama bottoms, eating Rice Krispies and scratching his Ed Balls, while contemplating thoughts of what happens next. There is something rather stirring about the thought of him hearing the Strictly theme tune, a light bulb appearing over his head and rashly deciding “that’s it!” Balls has kind eyes and looks as if he’d stand his round in the pub. He’s a Sunday roast and five-a-side sort, the fellow who hand-washes his car at the weekend.