Ten Years Ago, Ed Balls Tweeted ‘Ed Balls.’ How Is It Still Funny?
A decade is an eternity in internet years. But people still haven’t forgotten the British politician’s errant tweet, and he’s still playing along.
“If my name was Ed Smith it wouldn’t have been the same amusement in there,” Ed Balls said.Credit.Suzanne Plunkett/Reuters
April 28, 2021Updated 5:05 a.m. ET
LONDON Ten years ago on Wednesday, a politician who was a significant figure in British politics but hardly an international star followed an aide’s suggestion: He loaded the Twitter app on his BlackBerry and searched for his own name to see what people were saying about him.
Ed Balls has been celebrating this week as he was declared the winner of BBC One’s
Celebrity Best Home Cook. He joined the Chris Evans Breakfast Show with Sky to tell Sam Pinkham all about his win.
Ed explained the concept of the programme: “It was a cooking show, which for the first two series they had members of the public, and then they decided to get some tired old faces back on and do Celebrity Best Home Cook” he says wryly.
“We started with ten of us. Each week, we have to do a challenge set by Mary but we can come with our own recipe, then we then get given a special ingredient and we have one hour with no recipe to do something.”
Sign me up! Sign up to receive television and entertainment email newsletters from our award-winning editorial team. You can unsubscribe at any time. For more information about how we hold your personal data, please see our privacy policy.
Speaking exclusively to
RadioTimes.com, he said: “I love cooking roast dinners. I do roast beef and roast chicken every weekend and my mum taught me to do roast dinners. I love making gravy – it’s really important, and I always make a nice, brown gravy. But we sat around the weekend before and my daughter thought Mary Berry would like a much lighter gravy, so I thought really hard on how to make my chicken gravy light and much less pungent and strong.
| UPDATED: 09:24, Thu, Jan 21, 2021
Link copied Sign up for FREE now and never miss the top politics stories again
SUBSCRIBE Invalid email
When you subscribe we will use the information you provide to send you these newsletters. Sometimes they ll include recommendations for other related newsletters or services we offer. Our Privacy Notice explains more about how we use your data, and your rights. You can unsubscribe at any time.
The former Labour politician said that Liz Truss, the UK s International Trade Secretary, would struggle to broker a post-Brexit trade agreement with the new White House as securing one is not a top priority for President Joe Biden. Ms Truss had previously indicated her intent to sign a trade deal with the US this year but Mr Balls made clear in his view such a pact would not be forthcoming, especially in the early years of the Biden presidency.