ED BALLS

is going to jail. Fortunately for the former Shadow Chancellor, his impending incarceration is not down to any impropriety, but part of his new BBC documentary, Ed Balls: My Deep South Road Trip. According to a friend: ‘He’s going to be travelling around the US trying to find out how Trump won the election. And as part of it, he’s going to spend two days in a prison, to get a sense of what it’s like for people who are disenfranchised from mainstream America.’ It’s not yet clear which of the South’s infamous ‘correctional facilities’ Balls will be incarcerated in, but the maximum security Louisiana State Penitentiary – dubbed the Alcatraz of the South – may well be on his itinerary. As they said in the Shawshank Redemption, get busy living, or get busy dying, Ed.