The rehab begins here. Having acquired the reputation for being a bit of an insensitive bruiser – the arms gestures really didn't help – Ed Balls has clearly been told he needs to show his softer side if he wants to win the public over. So in a recent magazine interview the shadow chancellor let slip that he often cries when he watches Antiques Roadshow. "You know, when someone comes in with some family heirloom and the expert says, 'Do you know how much this is worth? It's valued at X thousand pounds.' And they say, 'I'm amazed it's worth that much, but it means more to me than money.' Incredibly emotional."
Really, Ed? Are you sure? I'm prone to weeping at rubbish, manipulative TV, but I've never been anything but dry-eyed throughout Antiques Roadshow. Nor has anyone else I know. The point of the programme is watching people try to disguise their disappointment when the experts value their priceless heirlooms at a few quid.
And if Balls really believes that people are being truthful when they say, "I'm amazed it's worth that much, but it means more to me than money," then he must be a simpleton. If people didn't really care what their stuff was worth, they wouldn't bother to spend a day lugging it around on the offchance it would get valued on TV.
Which leaves us with the problem of which would be worse: a shadow chancellor who feels the need to lie about crying about a Sunday night staple schedule filler ... or one who really does cry at Antiques Roadshow?
Read, or watch, this transcript from last Sunday's Antiques Roadshow of a man talking about a treasured possession, and see if you, too, are moved to cry
"I bought it from a gentleman whose family had lived in the same house for ever. It was a little cottage that backed on to the original Darlington-Stockton railway. I can only assume that's a toy, made by a father, for his son, as he watched that chugging up and down outside his back yard. If my house was to catch fire this evening, it would be the first thing I grabbed – I love it, I've had it 50-odd years."
