No time for pleasantries. Get ready for Osborne v. Balls

The night Ed Miliband was elected leader of the Labour party, his advisers sent him to bed before midnight and confiscated his mobile phone.

The night Ed Miliband was elected leader of the Labour party, his advisers sent him to bed before midnight and confiscated his mobile phone. Half a mile away from where the new leader was sleeping, Ed Balls was holding a wake with his closely knit, leadership campaign team. Here, no one was going to tell him what to do. He was going to sing, sup and speechify for as long as he wanted.

In the wee small hours of the morning, Balls kept rallying his troops. His wife Yvette Cooper, her voice shot from the evening’s karaoke, had retreated to the couple’s room at the conference hotel hours earlier. But Balls just carried on. He stood there in his shirt sleeves, a dominating physical presence. He held the room with ease.