Ed Balls

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Ed Balls

Ed Balls.Portrait.jpg

Name Edward Michael Balls (born 25 February, 1967)
Nicknames Ed (everyone), Balls (mostly his enemies), Ed 'Disco' Balls (everyone watching Strictly Come Dancing)[1]
Politics
Party Labour
Constituency Morley and Outwood (2010-2015)
Normanton (2005-2010)
Positions • Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer (2011-2015)
• Shadow Home Secretary (2010-2011)
• Shadow Secretary of State for Education (2010)
• Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families (2007-2010)
Likes Cooking, Norwich City FC, karaoke, musicals, barbecues, heckling Tories
Dislikes Blairites
Friends Gordon Brown, Vernon Coaker, Tom Watson, Andy Burnham, Sally Bercow, Charlie Whelan
Enemies Tony Blair, Michael Gove
Relationships
Partners Yvette Cooper (married 1998)
Children Meriel "Ellie" Cooper (1999), Joel Cooper (2001), Maddy Cooper (2004)
Personal Attributes
Nationality English
Religion Agnostic
Sexuality Straight
Height 5'10"
Eye Colour Blue
Handedness Right
Accent Slight East Anglia/East Midlands

We return to our storm-tossed hero. Mr Balls was smirking. Children, don’t look! Mr Osborne noticed it and I swear the Chancellor’s eyes widened, horrified by the thought that Balls might have something to be pleased with, something with which to flay the Government. ~ Quentin Letts

The overall effect is of an extremely friendly Labrador with a brain the size of a planet. ~ Matthew d'Ancona, writing for GQ

Ed Balls is the former Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer and Labour MP for Morley and Outwood. He ran for the Labour leadership in 2010 and came third. He is known for his infinitely hilarious name and pugnacious personality.

Life and Career[edit | edit source]

Early Life[edit | edit source]

Already intense.

Ed was bullied in school due to a combination of his surname and his stammer. After having moved from Norwich to Nottingham at eight years old, he sealed his fate at his new school through a particularly misguided attempt to impress his new classmates by wearing his Norwich City kit on his first day. Needless to say, this didn't impress his new classmates. He does, however, credit his childhood experiences for making him tough enough to stand up to his political rivals.[2]

When he was a teenager, Ed combined his lifelong love of cricket and maths in games of dice cricket. He admits to loving it so much that he would wish it would rain during summer holidays so that he could go inside and play. Typically, the bits of the game he found most exciting involved calculating the averages for all the players.

During actual cricket, however...
What not to do at uni, as demonstrated by Ed Balls

He studied PPE at Keble College, Oxford. While he was at Oxford he was a member of all three university societies of the three major political parties, inspired by a novel he'd read where the main character does exactly the same thing.[3] He has later said that it was the only way he could get to see political speakers from all the major parties. He also once dressed up in a German Officer's uniform (in the style of a Wehrmacht, I believe, who were active between 1935-1945) for a drunken student party, much to the Daily Mail's delight. The also refer to him as an ex-Tory in the same article however, so the intended implications about Ed Ball's younger self are ambiguous at best.

After Oxford, Ed won a Kennedy scholarship for a two year Economics course at Harvard university.

Journalism Career[edit | edit source]

Before being ensnared by the charms of Gordon Brown, Ed wrote for the Financial Times.

Early Political Career[edit | edit source]

Turn around and show us your Beautiful Buns, Ed...

In 1994, Ed became and economic advisor to then Shadow Chancellor Gordon Brown. It was in this role when he was given his first taste of the public eye, when Michael Heseltine ruthlessly exploited his surname in order to make a witticism about a recent speech by Brown. Displeased by the amount of perhaps nonsensical jargon littering the the speech, Heseltine made the quip "The speech had not been written by Gordon Brown at all, but by a 27-year old choral singing researcher named Ed Ball [sic]. So there you have it. The final proof. Labour's brand new shining modernist's economic dream. But it wasn't Brown's. It was Balls!"

He continued in this role until 1999, when he became the chief economic advisor to the Treasury. This was extremely notable given that the position is usually held by someone decades older than Ed, who was then in his early thirties, with years of treasury experience. While he was in this position he has been referred to as Britain's most powerful unelected figure, alongside Alastair Campbell.

Parliamentary Career[edit | edit source]

Obligatory

In Government[edit | edit source]

In July 2004, Ed was selected to stand as Labour and Co-operative candidate for the parliamentary seat of Normanton in West Yorkshire, a Labour stronghold whose sitting MP was retiring. He stepped down as chief economic adviser to the Treasury, but was given a position at the Smith Institute, a political think tank. Unsurprisingly, Ed was elected MP for Normanton in 2005.

It wasn't long before Ed was rising through the ranks of the Labour Party; Ed became Economic Secretary to the Treasury in a reshuffle in May 2006, just a year after becoming an MP. When Gordon Brown took over as Prime Minister in June 2007, Ed was made Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families. Ed had been considered for the Chancellorship, and he had had the backing of some of Gordon's personal staff, but Gordon instead gave the position to Alistair Darling in a bid to fend off accusations that Gordon would be too factional to be an effective Labour Party leader.

*smirk*

In his new role, Ed announced to much merriment from parents, children, teachers, and MPs of every party that the government would scrap SATs for 14 year olds. He was criticised by some for not taking the measures even further and banning the tests for 11 year olds as well, but then some people are never happy.

Following the Baby P case, Ed ordered the dismissal without compensation of Sharon Shoesmith, the Director of Children's Services. He also ordered an emergency OFSTED report, which concluded that safeguarding arrangements were not up to standard. There were allegations from Shoesmith's lawyers that Ed had ordered the report to be changed to make it come down harder on her, and Shoesmith brought a Judicial review case against Ed, OFSTED and the Council involved and subsequent appeals. Eventually it was concluded that Sharon had been dismissed "procedurally unfairly" and that she should have had compensation. Ed and the department were refused an appeal at the Supreme Court. Despite the controversy, Ed said that "faced with the same situation (he) would do the same thing again".

In Opposition[edit | edit source]

2010 Leadership Election[edit | edit source]

After the Labour Party lost the 2010 general election, Gordon Brown stood down as leader of the party. On 19 May 2010 Ed announced that he would seek to become Labour leader in the subsequent election. Ed became the third candidate to secure enough nominations to get on the ball, securing backing from MPs such as Tom Watson and Yvette Cooper. Ed came third in the election which was eventually won by Ed Miliband. Om his paper, Ed nominated himself for first preference only and did not list any other candidates.

Shadow Cabinet[edit | edit source]

In Ed Miliband's first Shadow Cabinet, Ed was made Shadow Home Secretary. Although this was undoubtedly a step up from his previous role, it had widely been assumed that Ed would have been given the job of Shadow Chancellor. Ed did eventually get the role after Alan Johnson stood down from his post 3 months later.

As Shadow Chancellor Ed often appeared alongside Ed Miliband at press conferences, leading to the two being names "The Two Ed" and all sorts of terrible follow up jokes (two Ed's are better than one, put your Ed's together, etc.).

Given that both Ed and Ed Miliband had been advisors to Gordon Brown during his time as Chancellor, and the narrative that the economic crash in 2008 was all Labour's fault sticking for a while, Ed faced a tough job as Shadow Chancellor. This often lead to heated exchanges in the House of Commons between Ed and George Osborne, odten with a great number of hand gestures on Ed's part.

2015 General Election[edit | edit source]

Ed's constituencies appear to suffer from some form of curse, starting when Normanton was abandoned as a constituency after boundary changes. This forced Ed, after a failed campaign and a failed court case, to stand for the newly formed Morley and Outwood constituency (which he won with a majority of just 2.3%). Despite the Labour leader's office apparently having known for two weeks that ed was in trouble, they did nothing to help him win his seat an in the 2015 general election, Ed lost the seat by ~400 votes to the Conservatives. This was greeted with great joy in the Conservative Party[4] and Ed's replacement recieved a huge cheer when she first spoke in the House of Commons.

Full List of Appointments
• Economic Secretary to the Treasury (6 May, 2006 - 28 June, 2007)
• Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families (28 June, 2007 - 11 May, 2010)
• Shadow Secretary of State for Education (11 May, 2010 - 8 October, 2010)
• Shadow Home Secretary (8 October, 2010 - 20 January, 2011)
• Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer (20 January 2011 - 8 May 2015)

Post-Parliamentary Career[edit | edit source]

It seemed the losing his seat could have been one of the best things ever to happen to Ed Balls. After spending years talking about it on twitter, Ed finally got his chance to compete on the TV show Strictly come dancing. Although he didn't win, Ed did redeem his reputation in the eyes of the general public considerably during his time on the show, falling into the role of "lovable yet slightly crazy and awkward Dad"-type. Once his stint on the show ended, he became part of the traditional post-show tour, dancing on stages across the UK.

He also got to be a contestant on the Great British Sports Relief Bake Off where she showed off his cake-making skills to the world.

Ed was also appointed Senior Fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government in the US and became Visiting Professor of King's College, London where he could talk about how amazing Gordon is all the time.

In addition to all his media appearances, Ed wrote an autobiography - Speaking Out.

Personal Life[edit | edit source]

Proud dad

Ed is married to MP Yvette Cooper, who he first met on Hampstead Heath (many people seem to find this amusing given the more interesting history of the place). Together they became the first married couple to serve together in the Cabinet. He does most of the cooking in the Cooper-Balls household, and has even been known to put off urgent queries from his leadership campaign manager in order to finish a kid's birthday cake.[5]

The launching of a thousand belly fetishes

He has a hobby of looking amusing in a sporting context, to the delight of people everywhere. He is particularly fond of cricket and football, but he has also been known to skip in front of a video camera. His football is particularly notable, given that he plays it in a masculine, heterosexual fashion with Andy Burnham and in an often unwisely sized kit.

Ed also has a love of karaoke. His favourite song allegedly is "Endless Love", in which he likes to sing the female part.

He can also play the violin and the bongos.

Ed Balls has a Twitter account, on which he tweets about economic policy, cakes and musicals.

Portrayal[edit | edit source]

In the Media[edit | edit source]

Ed's complex character has meant that there has not been a particularly consistent view of Ed in the media. He is seen sort of like a puppy Bulldog in that he's a vicious animal, clever, and will try and rip you apart given half a chance[6] but his musical and baking hobbies tend to soften the image somewhat.

The press also take great delight in making fun of Ed's name.

Since Ed left elected politics his image has softened somewhat and the press have started to come round to liking him more. Whether Ed will use this new found popularity to save the Labour Party from itself is yet to be seen.

In Culture[edit | edit source]

Ed Balls Day[edit | edit source]

On 28 April 2011 Ed Balls made a classic twitter mistake; instead of searching for something in the search bar, he accidentally tweeted it. It looked something like this:

Ed Balls

The rest of twitter (not just lolitics fandom, but actual politicians and journalists) thought it was absolutely hilarious and ever since, on 28 April every year, people retweet the original mistake, Ed Balls included.

In Fanon[edit | edit source]

Ed suffers from the same issue in fandom as he does in the media - no one's completely sure whether he's harmless and sweet or going to rip your head off and do very complicated economic calculations written in your blood.

Meme[edit | edit source]

As someone who has been involved in Labour politics for a very long time and in a number of roles, Ed was featured very heavily in the early and later parts of the meme, before everything seemed to move over to AO3.

Shipping[edit | edit source]

Ed's loyal fans have given him a pretty active love life. As well as being paired with his actual wife Yvette Cooper (Cooperballs), Ed is also commonly paired with Andy Burnham (Burnballs) and sometimes two at once (Cooperburnballs). Ed is also shipped with Ed Miliband (Ed^2) and Michael Gove (Goveballs) both generally pretty antagonistically. Occasionally he is also shipped with Gordon Brown.

References[edit | edit source]