"John Smith liked whisky-so did Robin Cook actually - and Gordon likes his wine." Not many Englishmen can demonstrate such intimate knowledge of three of the great Scotsmen to have dominated the Labour party over the past 15 years. But Ed Balls has himself been one of the country's most powerful people since his mid 20s. In 1994, Balls was plucked by Gordon Brown from the obscurity of leader writer at the Financial Times to be Brown's chief economic adviser, a position he held for a decade. He was the economic brain to Brown's political brawn, and when Labour was in opposition, the Conservative party tried to present him as a geek, largely on the basis of the reference to "post-neoclassical endogenous growth theory" that he inserted into a Brown speech, and which has since become his catchphrase. Michael Heseltine quipped of the speech: "It's not Brown's, it's Balls." To be insulted by the deputy prime minister at the age of 28 is a compliment indeed.
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