How far can Balls bounce?

As leadership hopefuls go, Ed Balls is not the most obvious candidate to win hearts and minds. A divisive figure behind the scenes and a stilted performer in front of the camera, he has — to put it politely — not always exhibited the qualities most closely associated with future prime ministers. But his reputation as a strategist is legendary, which is probably why there was a frisson of excitement last week when he made a foray into the Labour leadership debate by expressing a sudden enthusiasm for spending cuts.

His swashbuckling pledge to find £2 billion worth of savings raised pulses, not least because Balls has been arguing privately with Lord Mandelson for a long time that matching the Tories on spending reductions is the wrong path to follow. He has been the most vocal supporter of Gordon Brown’s ‘Labour investment versus Tory cuts’ claim. But last week on Andrew Marr’s sofa — sporting a new hairstyle — he seemed to have made a Damascene conversion.