Ed get the kids ready? He’s too busy playing the piano, says Yvette
HURRY up, we’re going to be late! Where’s your swimming kit? And Ed, will you get off that piano!
That, according to an impeccable source, is the sound of a typical morning in the Balls household.
In a revealing interview, Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, explains that husband Ed Balls is not much help on the school run.
And it’s not because the shadow chancellor is preoccupied with the nation’s finances. It seems his first priority of the day is his musical repertoire.
Miss Cooper admitted she starts the morning by shouting at her husband because he is too busy playing the piano to help get the children ready.
She revealed the chaos at the heart of family life in the high-flying couple’s house and said her husband’s timing for piano practice was ‘infuriating’ as it coincided with trying to round up their three children for school.
‘There’s always that sort of morning chaos,’ she said. ‘I think the most stressful time in any parent’s day is that period between 8.20am and 8.40am. It’s just … shouting.
‘You haven’t got them ready, you haven’t got yourself ready and then suddenly there’s a discussion about PE kit, or swimming. Who knew it was swimming today?
‘And Ed has taken to piano practising during that period. It’s infuriating,’ she told the latest edition of Red Magazine.
‘So the shouting now includes shouting at the kids, shouting at myself and shouting at Ed because he is playing the piano – and why is he not helping to find the swimming kit?’
But Miss Cooper managed to get her own back by teasing her husband over the fact that she has achieved a higher piano grade than he has.
Mr Balls missed his Grade 3 piano exam to respond to Chancellor George Osborne’s autumn statement. But Miss Cooper said: ‘I just say I learned to Grade 5. I don’t actually put fingers to the keyboard to demonstrate how much I’ve forgotten.’
Despite his lack of help in the mornings, Miss Cooper conceded that her husband is the chef in the household while she resorts to ‘ready meals or beans on toast’.
In a surprising admission, the usually no-nonsense Miss Cooper said she would love to appear on Strictly Come Dancing. ‘That would be wonderful,’ she said but added: ‘I’m sure I’d be hopeless.’
Miss Cooper also spoke of the challenge of keeping her children safe online, admitting they had to show her how to filter out porn.
She said: ‘Let’s be realistic. I have to ask my kids how to use the parental controls.
‘They are far more techno-savvy than I am. So the reality is they have to be resilient.’