Balls: I only realised I had a stammer at the age of 41

... after cruel taunts by Cameron

ED BALLS has spoken frankly about his ‘decade-long struggle’ with a stammer and how David Cameron’s cruel taunts led him to go public with his affliction.

The former Shadow Chancellor said he was not actually diagnosed with the condition – which caused him to seize up during speeches and debates – until he was 41.

in his new book, Speaking Out: Lessons in Life and Politics, he recalls how mr Cameron would lead the jeering from the Commons front bench – and nicknamed him ‘Blinky Balls’.

The jibes eventually persuaded mr Balls to publicly reveal his problem – at first in a newspaper article, and then in a radio interview after which, he admits, the ‘tears welled up’.

mr Balls, 49, was Schools Secretary under Gordon Brown before becoming Shadow Chancellor under Ed miliband. But he lost his seat in Labour’s catastrophic 2015 defeat.

He first noticed his stutter when appointed to his first ministerial job in 2006. in every TV interview ‘there was at least one moment when my voice would seize up and my eyes stare as i clenched my throat and fist,’ he wrote.

‘it didn’t take long for people to pick up on it. i learnt i’d acquired the nickname “Blinky Balls” in Conservative Central Office, supposedly courtesy of David Cameron.

‘As the Tories got a chance to see me up close across the dispatch box, a new phenomenon started: if i hesitated when answering a question, they’d shout “Errrr”, which made me hesitate more, and the laughter and mocking “Errrr”s would grow louder.’

in the Commons a year later, as Schools Secretary, he tried to read a statement – ‘but for seconds, i couldn’t say anything. As i eventually sat down, i heard the late, great Gwyneth Dunwoody say in a very loud voice: “He’s supposed to be the Secretary of State and he can’t even get his words out”.’

When one of his aides suggested he consult the website of the British Stammering Association, his first instinct was to think: ‘Why am i reading this? i don’t have a stammer.’

But he was diagnosed with an ‘interiorised stammer’, commonly known as a block. ‘i thought: “Here i am, aged 41, a Cabinet minister, and i’ve only just found out i’ve got a stammer”,’ he recalled. The aide put him in touch with a therapist.

‘i’m ashamed to say i was both sceptical and a bit worried at the prospect,’ said mr Balls. ‘it all felt a bit Cherie Blair and Carole Caplin.’

The therapist taught him to slow his speaking tempo, ‘calm down and get in control’. He was also advised to go public with his problem but he feared it might be seen as a sign of weakness.

mr Balls then got to know former monty Python star michael Palin who has campaigned to raise awareness of stammering as a serious problem. He visited Palin’s Centre for Stammering Children in London in 2011.

There a father whose child was struggling with a stammer said mr Balls was a ‘coward’ for not coming out about his own. ‘Why don’t you give these kids some hope and confidence that you can have a stammer and become a Cabinet minister?’ he asked him.

mr Balls was ‘mortified’ – and wrote an article for The Times, admitting to having the affliction.

The stammer, however, came back as he responded to George Osborne’s autumn statement in 2012.

‘i suddenly had a really bad block, and there was a gale of noise and mockery from the Tories, with David Cameron leading the laughter,’ he recalled.

The incident persuaded him to speak the next morning on radio 4’s Today programme about his stammer and how it could affect his Commons performance.

‘i came out of the Today interview, my phone exploding with messages saying “That was brilliant”,’ he wrote. ‘But then as tears welled up i sat disconsolate in a room on my own for ten minutes, thinking: “Why make myself so exposed?”.’ mr Balls’s memoirs will be published next month. He is also a contestant on BBC1’s Strictly Come Dancing which begins on Saturday.

‘A gale of noise and mockery’