The chunky neck, a hint of drollness. It’s like Ballsy never left
OH no, Ed Balls was back! Former Labour economics genius Ballsy returned to frontline politics yesterday when he accompanied George Osborne to a pro-EU event at Stansted airport.
Behind them was a Boeing 737, its fuselage painted with a Remain slogan. This aircraft was swiftly nicknamed Scare Force One.
The Chancellor was again on Project Fear manoeuvres, claiming that we will lose £200billion in trade if we vote for British independence. Or was it £400billion? The difference need not delay us – billions, schmillions. Round it up to the nearest hundred and say it with a deathly grimace.
The event was held in a hangar occupied by Ryanair, the Irish airline best known for its money-grubbing boss, Michael O’Leary. Young Ryanair cabin crew lined up to welcome us, the girls pinging Colgate smiles, the boys smelling faintly of Lynx deodorant.
Further cabin crew were sitting inside the hangar. Enter Mr O’Leary. It was disconcerting how, at the sight of him, his smartly-dressed employees fell into an obedient, almost cowed silence.
HE blurted some threats about how leaving the EU would make air fares pricier. These claims might have been more convincing had they come from an altruistic champion of consumers rather than a bloke whose airline whacks on costs seemingly at every point of the booking process. O’Leary! We can all form our own view of his honesty and his concern for British voters.
From the far end of the hangar, three hombres approached: Mr Osborne, Mr Balls and that other pin-up of youthful optimism, Sir Vince Cable. Was this a campaign rally or a Woodstock reunion? Mr Osborne opened with a speech about economic calamity if we left the EU. ‘Disaster... let me tell you... lower incomes... higher prices in shops...’ etc. Leaving the EU would be ‘a one-way ticket’ to ruination.
Mr Balls’s turn arrived. ‘Well, well, this is quite a surprise,’ he said – meaning he had never expected to share a platform with his foe Osborne. He claimed that if we left the EU, Adidas training shoes might cost 17 per cent more and Lacoste shirts would rise by 12 per cent. It was as though he had never been away: the long sentences, the chunky neck, the wine connoisseur’s way of relishing delicious ideas inside his lip, a hint of drollness in his pout.
Leaving the EU would be ‘a oneway ticket to a poorer Britain’. Sir Vince, trim and tanned, poohpoohed ‘juvenile caricatures’ of the EU put about by Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson.
He, too, said Brexit was a ‘oneway ticket’ to some terrible fate. At this point a Ryanair captain rose from his seat and hurried for the exit. Perhaps he was in search of one of those air-sickness bags.
FOR some reason Sir Vince started talking about exports of porridge. I wondered at first if the noise of aircraft zooming down the nearby Stansted runway had made me mishear but a Guardian colleague confirmed that Sir Vince was indeed talking about porridge – and at some length.
Whoever knew the continentals were so keen on Quaker Oats? You live and learn.
Boris’s recent mention of the Third Reich (which has set off the faux-outrage brigade, bigtime) was raised. Mr Balls called it ‘such an ill-judged lack of judgement’. Ballsy, lad, how we have missed ye.
Nice Faisal from Sky News pointed out that 12 months ago both Sir Vince and Mr Balls lost their seats to just the sort of vicious, Osbornian Project Fear campaign we are again seeing in this campaign.
Mr Balls momentarily looked like a frog that had just swallowed a bumble bee but he recovered his poise and gallantly said that life was about winning and losing.
‘Walking away would be a retrograde step,’ bawled Mr Balls. And with that, he and the two others did just that – and walked out of the hangar.