The former Labour politician Ed Balls served as secretary of state for children, schools and families under Gordon Brown and as shadow chancellor from 2011 to 2015. Born in Norwich in 1967, he studied at Oxford and Harvard and worked as a journalist for the Financial Times. He became an adviser to Brown in 1994 and was elected as an MP in 2005. Since quitting politics, Balls has appeared on Strictly Come Dancing and became a professor at King’s College London. He’s married to the Labour politician Yvette Cooper and lives in north London. His memoir, Appetite: A Memoir in Recipes of Family and Food, is out in paperback now (Simon & Schuster).
