ED BALLS UNDER PRESSURE: Zack Polanski Interview Sparks Fresh Calls for GMB Shake-Up
The Green Party leader clearly riled up the former Labour MP live on the ITV morning show.
Ed Balls needs sacking ASAP – this has gone on too long (Image: ITV)
Green Party leader Zack Polanski just proved Ed Balls needs sacking from Good Morning Britain – he’s got away with it for too long. On the show this morning, Polanski called out Balls’ obvious bias for the Labour Party, having served as an MP for a decade between 2005 and 2015, when he lost his seat. He was Education Secretary under Gordon Brown from 2007 until 2010, and Treasury Secretary for a year under Tony Blair.
To top it all off, he’s married to Yvette Cooper – current Foreign Secretary and former Home Secretary – and came under fire on the show for being allowed to interview his own spouse before being abruptly removed whenever she is set to appear on the programme.
Today, though, things came to a head, and the cold fact that Ed Balls’ position on the show is untenable became abundantly clear. Polanski straight out accused Balls of bias, saying during a video interview: “Do you know what I am enjoying? The fact that a Labour politician who is married to a senior Labour minister is allowed to ask questions to the leader of the Green Party. This is not our manifesto-”
Balls cut him off to ask: “Are you accusing me of being a Labour politician?”, but Polanski hit back: “Well, it’s not even an accusation. We are planning to replace the Labour Party and take the fight to Reform.”
Later in the car crash interview, Balls reiterated: “What you said about me being a Labour politician, did you mean that or not?”, leading Polanski to double down: “Well you might have been a Labour minister fairly recently, in the last 20 years.”
What made it worse is the way Balls reacted. It’s okay for a TV presenter to support a particular political party, as long as it does not impact their work. But at this point, Balls should be able to counteract remarks like this with more sensibility, and the fact he flew off the handle at the mention of Labour shows just how defensive he is about the subject. During the interview, furious Balls wouldn’t let it drop, saying: “I haven’t been a Cabinet minister… Unfortunately, Mr Polanski, I lost my seat in 2015, and I’ve not been a Labour politician in 10 years. Hang on a second, Mr Polanski, you accused me of being a Labour Cabinet minister! 16 years ago!”
Zack Polanski was involved in a vicious GMB row (Image: ITV)
But his anger seems misplaced. He was a Labour politician for a decade, and only left his MP role because he failed to get re-elected. Balls even launched his own bid to lead the party in 2010, coming in third place with Ed Miliband instead taking over. And the fact that this was brought up on live TV rather than discussing the subject at hand, the Green Party’s manifesto, shows that the presenter has become the bigger story than the show, and that never ends well.
Though he might not explicitly state his political views on GMB, his inherent bias has been pointed out by viewers over and over again – when interviewing MPs, when discussing his own wife, and when slamming current prime minister Keir Starmer when said wife looks set to launch her own leadership bid.
ITV needs to acknowledge what has long since been staring it in the face – Balls needs to go. It’s making a mockery of a programme that prides itself on being able to rival the BBC and Sky News for political interrogations. Ditch him or relegate him to a correspondent position – as long as Balls isn’t discussing politics, I don’t care.
