Ed Balls

MP for Morley and Outwood

After reading Politics, Philosophy and Economics with first class honours at Keble College, Oxford, Ed Balls attended Harvard University at the John Kennedy School of Government, becoming a teaching fellow there between 1989-90. While at Oxford Balls was a member of both the Labour Club and the Oxford Association. He began his career in journalism, writing for the Financial Times from 1990 until 1994, when he became economic advisor to Gordon Brown MP.

After the 1997 election he was economic advisor to the Chancellor Gordon Brown, and to the HM Treasury until 2004, and in this role he was named “the most powerful unelected person in the UK”. He was a research fellow at the Smith Institute before his election as MP for Normanton in 2005. He became Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families in June 2007 following the ascension of Gordon Brown to Prime Minister. In the 2010 general election Balls narrowly became MP for the newly created constituency of Morley and Outwood, and has declared himself a candidate in the Labour leadership contest.