The charming Mr Balls

Wannabe Chancellor Ed Balls has denied weekend reports that he's been using disgraced spinner Damian McBride to smear ministerial rivals and advance his own ambitions.
I'm sure he's speaking with conviction, but Balls can hardly get too uppity about accusations that he might consider stitching up the odd friend and colleague.
When he and fellow minister Yvette Cooper hosted their wedding reception at the Cavendish Hotel, Eastbourne, in 1998, the pair secretly arranged with the venue for an extra £9 to be put on guests' overnight hotel bills to save the happy couple £2,520 on the cost of the reception.
Gordon Brown and then girlfriend Sarah Macauley were star guests at the bash which also included several senior ministers such as Chief Whip Nick Brown, multi -millionaire Paymaster General Geoffrey Robinson, Treasury minister Dawn Primarolo and more than a dozen Labour MPs. Charming.