Ed Balls came to UEA to give a talk on 17th of May 2017. There was a book signing session afterwards. Of course I had my book signed. Overall he's a lovely person. It makes me miss the New Labour. The New Labour was brought down by a series of small mistakes, and a few big mistakes. Anyway, I remember three stories Ed Balls told us quite poignantly. I decided to write them down before I forget them.

So Ed Balls was with Gordon Brown in a Concorde flight back in 2002. The airplane suffered a compressor stall.

Ed writes in his new book, called Speaking Out: “Gordon said ‘well, here we are’ and I said: ‘Yep, maybe this is it’.”
When the plane got to 24,000ft Gordon turned to Balls and said: ‘What do you think? Should we finish my speech?”, recounts Balls.
Fortunately the plane started falling, disaster was averted, and the speech was finished.
Radio Times ¹⁾

Apparently Ed Balls and Gordon Brown talked about their life in the decent, and Gordon Brown started blaming other people about things. Additional information can be found at ²⁾.

Ed Balls also told us this story:

Ed Balls, the Labour party’s answer to Michael Flatley, tells a story in his autobiography about being at a dinner to mark Jonathan Sacks’s 20th anniversary as Chief Rabbi, which was attended by the Prince of Wales. Balls’s wife, Yvette Cooper, fell into conversation with the prince’s security officer, who asked what she did and she explained that she was the shadow home secretary. In fact, she said, gesturing at her husband, he’s a politician too. “Ah yes,” the policeman replied. “I thought I recognised Nick Griffin.” Cooper sweetly expressed her surprise that the leader of the British National Party had made the Chief Rabbi’s guest list.
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