Ed Balls: 'the British public don’t like nastiness in politics'

Ed Balls appeared on BBC Radio Leeds' "one on one" this afternoon, a local version of Radio 4's Desert Island Discs.

As well as picking his favourite tracks the shadow chancellor and Yorkshire MP discussed Ed Miliband and the Blair-Brown years as well as his childhood and his marriage to Yvette Cooper.

One of the stand-out quotes from the interview was when he was asked whether he was satisfied in his current job.

He said: "I think it’s a massive responsibility and a huge important job. I worked with Gordon Brown and Tony Blair over many years. One of the things I learned was you should love doing what you do every day.

"If you spend your whole time thinking 'I would rather have a different job, I'd rather be moved on'…I'm at the point in life I like to do what I do every day."

Perhaps a less than subtle dig at his former mentor Brown for spending much of his time as chancellor hankering after the top job.

Balls on 'Project Volvo'

Asked whether he denied engaging in "skulduggery" during the Blair-Brown feud, Balls said he was not going to naively expect people to believe the two former prime minister's got on well at all times.

"I'm not going to say there weren't times when Tony Blair did things to Gordon Brown or Gordon Brown did to Tony Blair, you could use the word skulduggery.

But he dismissed as "nonsense" the allegations published in the Daily Telegraph that the so-called "project Volvo" was a "plot to secretly remove Tony Blair from office".

"Blair had announced he was going to be leaving before next election," he said.

"If there was a plot Tony Blair was as much at the heart of that as Gordon Brown. We were in discussions about how to make that work."

And he said that Brown was "beside himself" at the letters in 2006 from Labour MPs that called on Blair to quit, believing that if the way Blair went that "looked divisive we would pay a big price".

He added: "The trouble was by that point in their lives neither of them found that collaboration very well."

Balls said that by that point his role in government alongside Alastair Campbell was "holding the show together".

Asked about his approach to politics he said "the British public don’t like nastiness in politics" and said he hoped the public recognised he was in the game for the "right reasons".

Balls on Ed Miliband

Balls said he backed Miliband "100 per cent" and welcomed the "important decision" to abolish elections for the shadow cabinet.

"What Ed is doing is not jumping to short term media tune, not being knocked about by people who want to destroy him quickly," he said

And he said it "takes time" for new leaders to establish themselves reminding interviewer Liz Green that when Blair took over Labour in 1994 he was dismissed as "Bambi Blair".

And the music

As for the music he chose. Balls plumped for Herbert Howells' Like as the Hart Desireth the Waterbrooks, Spandau Ballet's Trueand Billy Brag's Saturday Boywhich he played on his Labour leadership tour.

He also revealed that he and his wife Yvette Cooper sing Elvis' I Can't Help Falling in Love With Youin their car together. "Yvette sings the melody and I do the harmony," he revealed.

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