The schools secretary may go the same way as Michael Portillo, writes MARK HENNESSY
ED BALLS badly wanted to be chancellor of the exchequer and, indeed, still does. During some of the current office-holder’s, Alistair Darling, darker moments it looked as if prime minister Gordon Brown might actually have appointed him.
Such an outcome, if it had happened, the Conservatives’ Michael Gove told the House of Commons a few months ago to uproarious laughter from all sides, even the Labour MPs sitting behind him, would be the first time anyone had ever chosen to have Balls as a neighbour.
A political tribalist of the first order, Balls, now schools secretary, is a man who excites fear and loathing in many and loyalty in others. He is the man the Conservatives most despise in Labour, even above Brown. Yet he is the man they most need to survive.
For months, the Conservative candidate in the newly-created Morley and Outwood constituency, Antony Calvert, has nipped away at Mr Balls. This has caused amusement in Conservative Central Office because the pretender annoyed the schools secretary so much.
Now, however, Calvert has stopped being a nuisance, and poses a genuine threat. Bookmakers still make Balls, who should enjoy a notional 8,000 majority in the constituency, the odds-on favourite to win although Conservative leader David Cameron still thought it worth his while to call in on Morley last week.
Balls’ defeat this week, if it were to happen, would be the 2010 equivalent of Michael Portillo’s 4am loss in Enfield Southgate in 1997: an outcome that provoked much hilarity, along with a book and T-shirts adorned with the slogan, ‘Were You Still Up for Portillo?’
“The champagne will pop if that happens, I can tell you,” one senior Conservative said. But the more strategic, the ones who can put aside their bilious feelings, understand that his survival best suits the Tories’ longer-term interests.
Balls is supported by the largest trade unions, who now control Labour’s purse strings and his election as the party leader after Brown could mean Labour consumed by internal wars not seen since the 1980s.
On Saturday, speaking after he had canvassed for votes outside the Leeds Bridal Village shop on Queen Street in Morley, Balls said: “The thing about Portillo is that he didn’t know it was coming.”
Balls’ life has been complicated by the fact that he has been the major loser in Yorkshire of a boundary review provoked by the county’s declining population, which abolished his Normanton constituency and left him fighting in territory that is three-quarters new to him.
“We’ve been here for two years. We’ve got 60, or 70 people working on the campaign,” said Balls, who was accompanied by canvassers, including Sandymount, Dublin-born Labour council candidate David Nagle.
Labour’s previous MP in Morley, Colin Challen, was elected with a 12,000 majority in 2005. Initially, he had intended to stand against Balls for selection in the redrawn constituency, but then stood down.
Subsequently, in a private letter put into the public arena, he claimed he was forced out by Labour headquarters.
On Friday, the Morley and Outwood candidates gathered just off Queen Street for a soap-box debate with 250 locals; many of whom were, it must be said, as bad-tempered as the candidates.
Immigration is a live issue in the constituency, which lies on the edge of Leeds and has the largest membership of any branch of the far-right British National Party (BNP), while that party also has seats on the local council.
Questioned about Rochdale pensioner Gillian Duffy, called a “bigoted woman” by Brown after she raised the issue of immigration, Balls distanced himself from his boss. “I have seen the film and I have read the transcript and I think that Gillian Duffy was quite right in what she was saying,” he said.
Faced with boos from supporters of BNP candidate cllr Chris Beverley in the 250-strong crowd, Balls said: “Immigration is an issue here in Morley but it is never good to see the BNP out on the streets. They are a scar on the community.”
Earlier on Saturday, Balls had met with local “Help for Heroes” volunteers, who are campaigning for better treatment for returning British army soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan – an encounter Balls mentioned in one of his regular “tweets” later that afternoon.
However, Sid West, who is campaigning for an older generation of veterans, who served for less than the full 22-year-term between 1949 and 1974, was less than impressed: “Balls refused to sign my petition,” he complained, “and he has done nothing to help”.
Like many others in Morley, West has little time for him.