Don’t trust Ed Balls, he’s only the piano player

Ed Balls missed a piano exam last week because he had to be in Parliament for the autumn statement.

It’s a mark of how removed Westminster can be that no one thought the scheduling strange.

Few folk in normal jobs have employers who would accommodate time off for a piano test at 11 o’clock on a Thursday morning.

Piano playing is just one of Balls’ many talents. He leads the line for the Labour MPs’ football team. He cooks a legendary lasagne. At he’s been known to take on the role of Santa in fine style for children’s charities’ Christmas parties.

And he often puts his skills at the joanna to good use late in hotel bars during conference season, treating delegates to what’s become less of an impromptu singalong and more of a conference tradition. The Shadow Cabinet singing Bohemian Rhapsody is a sight to behold.

But on Thursday the Shadow Chancellor’s talent for politics seemed to desert him.

He needed a kind of magic to respond to a strong Autumn Budget Statement from Chancellor George Osborne. When he sat down after a lacklustre performance, he was under pressure.

And then the Chancellor hammered home his advantage, taunting his opposite number: “He hopes to reach grade eight piano over the next four years. After his performance today, I can see why he expects to have a lot more time to practise.”

Just as Osborne used his Autumn Statement to crow that he’s been proved right on the economy, he may yet be correct in predicting the fate of the Shadow Chancellor.

Balls is decent company but on TV and in the chamber he too often comes across as pugnacious, combative and smug. There’s no doubt he’s ambitious and arrogant, qualities that may yet prove his undoing.

In recent leaked emails from Ed Miliband’s team, the Shadow Chancellor was described as a “nightmare” and his staff dubbed “pirates”.

Miliband gets on with Balls because they’re both political operators groomed by Gordon Brown. But for that very reason he knows not to trust his Shadow Chancellor.

It may be a case of keep your friends close but your enemies closer, for Balls could wreak havoc from the backbenches.

There comes a point at which the Balls balance could tip and he’s doing more damage on the front bench.

Thursday’s Commons performance was more Les Dawson than Richard Clayderman. He went red and shouty, made some good jokes but failed to land a single blow on the Government.

Miliband may now be thinking not about whether to dump his Shadow Chancellor but how to do it in a way that causes as little damage as possible.

For if he does sack Balls, George Osborne will be sure to make political capital out of seeing off his nemesis and discrediting Labour’s economic policies.

Miliband has to decide whether that’s worth it to get someone unquestionably competent in the role who can carve up the Coalition Treasury team in a time of returning growth.

There are few alternatives.

Alistair Darling would be available post Scottish referendum though he too is tainted by being part of the last Labour Government. The leading candidates are rising stars Rachel Reeves and Chuka Umunna, both elected for the first time in 2010.

Miliband is trying to conduct the Opposition orchestra to a grand finale in 2015.

Like the classic Morecambe and Wise Christmas Special, he’s Andre Previn, while Balls resembles Eric bumbling at the piano and spoiling the sound voters hear.