Ed Balls

From Ed Balls Q. I have been doing a lot of exercise over the past few weeks and I’ve lost well over a stone. Sadly my (full-time) exercise regime has just come to an enforced and rather abrupt halt. How do I stop just regaining all those pounds over Christmas? A. You are unlikely to have the time or willpower to continue with the full-time exercise regime which created this flattering new physique. Yet there is no reason why you can’t adapt the method Beach Boy Brian Wilson used to lose nine stone, which was to employ two full-time minders to simply block his access to the fridge. Your own minders could double as researchers or even personal trainers and in this way you may retain the svelter outline which suits you so well.

Cooking the Christmas dinner is my job in our house. And I love it. All those courses and juggling of logistics. The annual realisation that our oven is too small to cope with the scale of my ambitions. Ladling goose fat from the pan. And a family meal which — just once a year — can take as long as it needs to take, without kids rushing off to a rehearsal or to finish homework or even just to escape their relatives. Every year I like to try to something new. Most recently a rich and marzipan-y German cake called a stollen (lesson, don’t leave it too long in the oven — it dries out). The year before, a really proper beef gravy, starting from baking the bones, which was 36 hours brilliantly well spent.

Cooking the Christmas dinner is my job in our house. And I love it. All those courses and juggling of logistics. The annual realisation that our oven is too small to cope with the scale of my ambitions. Ladling goose fat from the pan. And a family meal which — just once a year — can take as long as it needs to take, without kids rushing off to a rehearsal or to finish homework or even just to escape their relatives. Every year I like to try to something new. Most recently a rich and marzipan-y German cake called a stollen (lesson, don’t leave it too long in the oven — it dries out). The year before, a really proper beef gravy, starting from baking the bones, which was 36 hours brilliantly well spent.

The Conservatives think that education is about selecting the lucky few, says Ed Balls. But there is no reason why excellence and opportunity shouldn’t be for all It’s just over a year since David Willetts made his thoughtful but ultimately fatal pronouncement: ‘academic selection entrenches advantage, it does not spread it’. Those nine words — anathema to most Conservatives — led to a civil war inside the party, a messy U-turn and the reshuffling of Mr Willetts to a new job. The issue of whether the Tories would change the law and support new grammar schools being built — such as the one being proposed in Buckinghamshire — remains unresolved.