Why Ed Balls’s dad dancing was all MY fault!
SIX MONTHS after the show finished, I had a peculiar message on my phone.
‘Please ring Ed Balls about a private matter.’
I knew Balls only from the studio, jousting across wires and microphones. But he was now out of politics, beaten in the 2015 election. So why was he calling?
‘I have been asked to do Strictly Come Dancing,’ he said quietly down the line. ‘Yvette [Cooper, Labour MP and his wife] says I should do it because she loves the show. But I need your advice. I’m worried it may affect my . . .’
I filled in the blank. ‘Seriousness?’
‘Exactly. But we saw how you enjoyed it. What’s it like?’
I described the full joy and madness. ‘Do you think I should do it?’ I didn’t even pause. ‘Yes. Definitely! Don’t worry what others think. You’re out of politics at the moment. Do it for yourself, do it for Yvette and the kids, do it to see inside the most successful show in the BBC’s history.’
I offered only two pieces of advice: ‘Start working on the Charleston now. It is a horrific step. And don’t hold back.’
Back at home, I told my wife, Rachel, about the call. She was horrified. ‘Oh, God, Jeremy, did you really tell him that? It’s fine for you to dress up as a cowboy and ride in on a giant horse, but he is different.
‘He is a politician — he has to preserve his serious image. He might want to be Governor of the Bank of England one day.’
I have learned that in matters involving fine judgment, it’s usually wise to defer to my wife. So, as the 2016 unveiling of Strictly celebrities approached, I got more and more nervous on Ed’s behalf.
On his first televised outing a night when there were no eliminations, he wore a dark politician’s suit (he had reportedly requested ‘no sequins’) and did a clunky waltz.
He looked like he had turned up for BBC1’s Question Time and been led to the wrong studio. But after that first dance, Balls was a changed man.
His Charleston on the next show was sensational. Drowning himself in sequins and fake tan, he had evidently decided to abandon all attempts to preserve his dignity
Thousands of members of the public uploaded supportive comments online.
The day after his eventual exit, I was asked on BBC Breakfast what I thought of his performance. I said it was stupendous. We had probably just seen ‘the most profound reinvention of a politician, ever’.
Even the sworn enemies of the Westminster Ed were agreed. Fresh from a public drubbing in the 2015 election and possibly deep in a mid-life crisis, he’d danced his way into the nation’s heart.