Might Delete Later - Ep 10: Ed Balls

Episode Date: July 30, 2020

It’s the final episode of the series, and we’ve bagged a bucket list guest. Ed Balls – self-described ‘former dancer and Cabinet minister’ – talks first tweets, best tweets and THAT tweet.👉🏼Remember you can find all posts discussed on Instagram @mightdeletelaterpod and we're on twitter too @mightdeletepodEd Balls’s book Speaking Out is out now. Buy it hereFollow Ed Balls on Twitter @edballs and Instagram @edballs1967Follow Gina on Instagram @ginamartin and Twitter @ginamartinukFollowing Stevie on Instagram @5tevieM and Twitter @5tevieMWant to help us make more episodes? Support Might Delete Later at https://supporter.acast.com/mightdeletelaterHosted by Gina Martin and Stevie Martin.Photo by Joe Magowan.Artwork by Zoe Harrison.Recorded and edited by Ben Williams.Produced by Plosive Productions.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/mightdeletelater. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Do you love Mike Delete Later? I bloody hope you do. You can support our show by using the new ACAS supporter feature. It's up to you how much you give and there is no regular commitment. Just smash that link in the show description and support us now so we can keep making this podcast. Thank you. Welcome to the last episode of Series 1 of Like Delete Later with me, Stevie Martin. I know it's sad.

A person who feels social media should walk out to the scene never return. I hate it. That's very specific that, isn't it? And me, Gina Martin, who actually enjoys social media and it's ocean of delights. I wrote that. Stevie wrote that makes me laugh. We go through people we find interesting social media timelines and we dredge up some juicy, good business. So today, our guest is actually a bucket list guest.

We did not think we'd again for series one. He walked out politics in 2015 and never returned. His career went from Labour politician and shadow chancellor to Twitter sensation and strictly come dancing icon two words, Gangnam Style. He's written in autobiography called Speaking Out. He does a lot for the charity action for stammering children.

He's been like the chairman of Norwich FC Football Club. He's done quite a lot of stuff. We're obviously talking about the man Ed Balls. So excited to have him here. Ed's Twitter account even spawned a national day.

This year we celebrate the ninth annual Ed Balls Day after Ed, while searching for an article on himself in 2011, tweeted his own name and it became infamous. To celebrate Ed's Bores Day in 2016. He also baked a cake featuring the tweet and he's just an all-round

great guy to have on. Yeah, he was really, really a good laugh, really fun and also what I found really especially interesting about this episode is that we talked a bit about how they don't get any training as politicians to go on social media. Like when he was starting out, they were just sort of sent into this wilderness. Yeah. It was quite like a demystifying conversation about politics. And then at the same time, there's quite a lot of hilarious, funny stuff like the bit where he starts dancing to Beyonce, but we'll get you to hear that bit later. Yeah. Yeah. This is a really, a really good one to end the series on, I think. It really made me think, and it also, I learned things that I did not realise about how politicians operate on social media.

Yeah. Well, we hope you love it. We hope you've loved season one. So here is the last episode. And remember, you can go to at Mike Delete LaterPod on Instagram for all the posts we discussed today. Enjoy. Enjoy. Enjoy. We did an interview for I can't remember, it was at the evening standard, and we said we had our guests that we've had on, and then we had dream guests, and it was Ed Bulls.

And then within a few days, you'd confirmed. Which we were very excited about. Well, look, I saw the evening standard and thought, you know, make their dreams come true. Yes. This is what life's about.

We do a little feature, which is called, what would you like to delete this week? You know, what is the one thing I'd like to delete from the last, five or six days, while we're all dealing with the end of lockdown, having to try and see people when you come in your house, is that we've got to stop, you've got to delete spontaneous showers of rain

in the middle of the afternoon. When you suddenly get absolutely soaked, and what you're supposed to do is you can't go or go indoors because the vets are saying, I'm really sorry, the rules don't allow this. So you have to stand outside and get wet. Oh, wow. What would you delete, Gina, this week? So I bought fruit toast

And I'm really enjoying it Because tea cakes are my main Like obsessive snack But you put it as a loaf did you? Yeah, you know the loaf that's already sliced And it's like delicious Put it in the toaster Lots of salty butter on top

You can get a good hot cross bun version Or just go through a plain fruit I got a plain fruit Try the hot cross bun one Can be evaded Oh bloody many opinions So many of things Do it's very good

There's a whole range You're very good at this You should get your fruit toast on that boss No, I got my fruit toast And you know when you get a rain but it's got the stalk still on it and it's in the bread. It's crunchy. The sand thing.

I had about six in one slice and that's what I delete. I might actually get a refund. If you do a tweet with that exit of the podcast and a picture, you might find that Warburton's will suddenly send you a thousand, which will be of no use to you because you can only eat one at a time. And it will go stale. But you know what, if you do a tweet, I might get invited to like the factory, so that would be good.

I have actually been around at Warburton's factory and they are amazing to go around. I'm so jealous. There's one near my old constituency on the Normanton border. And it's really good to go in. But I'm not sure they did the fruit loads there. Well, can you tell the next time you're there to delete the stalks at the raisins? Because it's upset. I think you are right.

Stevie, what would you delete this week? Mine's, and it's not fair. Basically, I'm in a current stage where I like pitch for work and then get the job and then don't want to do it and then don't want to do it. To me myself every morning. I actually don't do the thing that I actually, you know what it's not even lockdown, it happens in normal life and I get up and I'm furious that I have to do this thing that I was desperate to do, wanted to do, have been given a lovely opportunity to do and then I moan a lot of the day. I feel that. That's what I'd like to delete. I guess I'm deleting the concept of me

working. It's a very important thing though, which is that and if you're a politician, somebody says, would you like to come and do a speech next March? And you say, yeah, great. And then you get to you at the end of February and you think, why? I even have this, yeah. Agreed to do that. So I think you always have to think when you're putting that work in. If I get it tomorrow, do I still want it? That's great thing.

And if you don't want it tomorrow, always say no, or always find a way to say, I can't make a decision now, but can we decide for three weeks time? And if they say no, that's fine. But it's, it's, that idea that somehow it's far enough away that it's not the problem. That's so true. Not how it works. I want to just broadly ask you, what's your relationship like with Twitter? Like, do you enjoy it?

I do enjoy it. And I use it a lot, actually. And for lots of different reasons over the years. I mean, I've had a checkered relationship with it. There's been moments when it's not gone right. But I've been doing it for 12 years now. And I think professionally, in my old job, when I was a politician. If you were going to go on to the Today program or the world at

one and you wanted to know in the most up-to-date way what's happened in the world in the last five minutes, so you never have caught out. Twitter is faster than anything else in terms of telling you what to do. I use it a lot for football because I'm not a city fan. I was chairman of the club and I learned a lot about Twitter, including not to tweet about football. you're the chair but the football club but it's nice to keep in touch with fans and what's going on so I have a search for Norwich

Do you find it nicer now that you're not a politician? Well it's massively different social media is a pretty rough place and I think it's got harsher and it's harsh for politicians I think it's particularly tough on women politicians and I see that in my life all the time

because if I'm married to when I was a politician my Twitter feed would could be pretty wild and it's much, much less so now. It's much nicer and more generous. But I've sort of seen both sides of the track. Somebody will do a tweet saying, could I give them my Yorkshire pudding recipe or lasagna?

Things which, for historical reasons, are out there. Nowadays, if I do, then people say nice things. Whereas in the old days, you've had loads and loads of abuse for it as well as the nice bit. So you had to sort of aim off. And then I also use it because sometimes if you're just scrolling through, you find stuff that you'd never have seen. Yeah.

And I often tweet links from Twitter to find out about stuff I would never have looked up otherwise. So I kind of like it just to explore. Do you think if you're a politician today without social media, do you think that would be possible to have a successful connected career in politics without it? No, but I think it's possible to do it really badly and for it to be counterproductive. And I think with Twitter in particular, Facebook, Facebook is a bit different because Facebook can be like publishing a press release. But with Twitter has to be personal.

You can see immediately the people are doing it when it's not really them. It's their team or their staff. And if it looks like you're doing it as a form of self-promotion, I think people really react badly to that. And you have to be willing to do things which you find odd or interesting or funny or quirky. and allow yourself to be seen doing unusual things or just in weird ways, rather than it being,

if it looks like you're using it professionally, I think then that can really backfire. Yes. But as a way of revealing a bit more about who you are and as a way of knowing what's going on, I think it's really powerful. And I think every senior politician other than you, be the prime minister, you probably have got, you know,

more important things to do, like your pressups or whatever. Donald Trump hasn't, clearly, but... Donald Sean is astonishing and appalling the way he has used it, but it's incredibly powerful. It's like a masterclass in how not to use it. It's like it is, but it's also absolutely fascinating how he uses it, I find. I think it's almost as if like, well, there were no rules that you couldn't do that, but everyone just, of course you shouldn't use it like that if you're the Leader of America. I don't think that we realize the extent to which such a large part of American society anyway

would see the mainstream media as the after-touch evil elite. But his ability to go around pretty much every media outlet and talk to people directly and with a massive engagement on every tweet. When I did the programs of the BBC called Travels in Trump Land, actually lots of his supporters were quite skeptical about his tweets, but they were quite forgiving because I think the thing, we all think these people who vote for him, they must be deluded or extreme,

whereas actually you meet lots of people who are not extremists, but they also find aspects of him quite off-putting, but he connects with them in some way about something which is important in their lives, which is often feeling that they've been ignored or not listened to. And there's this guy who's tweeting them directly, Well, it's also like about, you mentioned earlier about how people like to see people, and we're going to get onto your posts later and I think it's a really good,

not just the obvious one, like it's a really good example of how you kind of always tweet like you are a person tweeting and people respond really well. So people forgive. I'm going to say, I am a person. I heard that too. And that's why. What is as if, though? What is it?

Do you know what? The worst thing about leaving politics and doing other stuff, especially doing strictly, all the time. I still get it now. People say, you know, we always knew you're a politician, but it's really good to find out that now you're a human being. Yeah. Yeah. Like you weren't before. It's terrible, isn't it? It wasn't that I tweeted like a person. I know what's weird. That's a great point though. Because I fully fall into that. I'm like, you know, politicians, fine, lovely. Not people. That's terrible. Isn't that weird? Not like us, a bit weird, a bit odd, out for themselves. Well, also I suppose it's because of the expectation.

There's a very different expectation when you're a politician. on social media than there is, I'd say, any other career. You have to be intelligent, sincere. They want you to, every tweet. People want you to be like, good, and he can also lead to the country if necessary on various aspects of life. And that's so...

On every aspect of the country. Yeah, it's so not normal. That's true. I don't know if you found it exhausting, but it feels like it would be exhausting, constantly treading that line between showing people that you are real and that you're not just a robot. And then the other side,

which is like being completely insane like Trump. Like if he's like one end of the spectrum. The thing which you have to, when you're talking to people who are new into politics, I mean, this is publishing what you're doing. It's not a little remark to a mate. You're publishing something which could actually be on the front of the daily mail tomorrow. It will last forever.

If you start deleting it, that's quite problematic. And so you have to really think, am I sure I want to publish this? And that's a little bit of a check. But if you allow that to become overwhelming, then all you ever do is boring. Yeah, you never feel relatable. And that's the great thing about those platforms

is they are kind of the one space where you get to control the narrative and be relatable and have that rapport with people. So, yeah, I guess walking across that line and following that line is quite a balance at times. It is. Because our family always watched X Factor. For a vet's birthday,

we actually bought tickets for all of us to go and see the live tour at the O2, the year when Matt Cardle won and One Direction came second. It's Sher Lloyd that year. And so we'd be sitting around watching the TV. And then it's interesting to look on Twitter to see what people are saying. Yeah.

Then you sort of join in. And then there was one time I can't remember you. I think it made Meisha B. I did like a cheer for Mies should be on Twitter. And then Nicole Scherzinger reads it out on the live program. Whoa. And our, I mean, at the time our kids were like for early teams. And until that moment, it was actually really quite fun.

And then she reads it out and it's kind of like, oh my God. Oh, no, I'm part of it now. It's not just me having fun. That is so embarrassing. My friends will see that. What are you doing? How can you do that? Oh, my God.

They called, ah. I said it was kind of, it was kind of quite bad that day. I was going to ask you actually about that, about how do your kids, I mean, they're not, they're not really kids anymore, some of them, but like how have they responded over the years about you being on Twitter? Well, I think that as they've got older, it's become a bit easier. The reality is we've been very, very protecting of them as individuals. Because we were with a married couple in the cabinet, we were so exposed.

So we've never, there's no photos of them, we've never spoken about them as individuals. I've never ever mentioned any of them or any of their names in any tweet or any social media or any interview really. I talk generically about our kids or bigger parents, but I think they always had this view that they wanted to be able to walk into the school playground and be themselves first, not somebody who is identified as being the child of a cabinet minister, and therefore, I mean, which is partly why they've got their mum's surname

because it gives them a little bit more anonymity, which is quite important. But every now and then when they were younger, if they thought that their friends might see something and then that would kind of identify me and then by association in a way which would be embarrassing to them. Every now and then they'd kind of get a bit annoyed. And that X-Factor one, I remember,

whereas the Eurovision Song Contest, which I've also done over the years, a few tweets about, was never caused many embarrassment because I don't think anybody aged 15 was watching the Eurovision Song Contest anyway, so therefore they didn't care. But the X-Factor one, they did care about.

And that was kind of like... like almost pick and choose the cultural touch points you're going to use so that your kids are like, Dad! Well, look, Dad's is supposed to be embarrassing. Yeah, that's your job and that's why we love you. I've had moments of overachievement. We had this moment last September where our, during the one of the worst moments around Brexit and lots of antagonism, and it was the moment where Boris Johnson's Prime Minister had a big clash

in the House of Commons with Paula Sheriff, who was the Jusbury MP at the time. And she was very angry with him for being, he sort of, she's the MP for the same seat as Joe Cox had lived in. And he was dismissive. And our oldest daughter, who was now 21, so she's 20. She was very upset about this. And, you know, Evets had lots of, we've had lots of issues just in terms of Evette's safety. And she decided the next day that she wanted to say something. And she wanted to write an article saying, don't they understand?

what they're doing when they raise this hate and this antagonism it makes people like us feel scared. And we were quite worried about this. And I bet and I had a long conversation with over a couple of hours saying, are you sure you want to put yourself out into public arena? And what the interesting thing she then decided to do was to do it on Twitter. Because she decided that if she wrote an article, that was kind of like not what she would naturally do,

but she did a series of tweets, a thread. in which she essentially wrote her article, in which she said that people should understand the risk they're taking. And leadership can be about having a strong view without needing to divide, but also talking about the death threats that have had. And some of the newspapers turned it into an article.

I thought what was interesting was that she decided that Twitter was a better method for her to say, it felt more natural to her through Twitter than by writing an article. So true. Has there ever, for you, ever been a moment where you thought, I'm going to take a break from this. I'm just, I'm not going to be online on social.

Have you ever wanted to take a break, or have you always been quite comfortable being able to control it yourself? The nature of being a politician or in public life, I think, public policy life, is you have to have a sufficiently thick skin that you can allow things to not hurt you, but not so thick that you don't see what's happening around you and understand it and listen to it.

And if you allow the attacks to feel as though they overwhelm you, and that is everything everybody thinks, then that's very distorting. But if you don't listen to what people would disagree with you say, then you're not going to understand what's going on. And finding that balance, and it is hard. And sometimes when it's very abusive, it's very, very hard. And some of the stuff which gets, I mean,

I see it now, every now and then when a vet does something. And the stuff, because I'll get tagged in or kind of mentioned in it, I mean, it is astonishing what people say. How do you support each other when that happens? What do you do to help her and how how do you could have worked through it? The thing which we don't do ever is sit down and scroll through each other's timelines together. Although I at times will do that just to make sure I know what's happening for her. And probably what we'll do is not talk about what's been said on Twitter,

but about what she's doing and why and why it's the right thing or how to think about it or what's next. because you have to keep remembering what your purpose is and why you're involved in this and to get to the bigger place. Whereas if you get dragged down into taking seriously or responding to every piece of personal abuse, well, that just does your head in. That's what I mean about having a thick enough skin

to be able to deal with it without being so thick that you become unaware. And I think that's very hard balance to get. We're going to do your first post, worst post, best post. Have you got my first post? Have you got it? Yes. Yes. Do you know, I discovered, and this obviously relates to the influence tweet, but I knew I was going to come and do this today. And so three hours ago, I tried to look up my timeline. I couldn't find anything. It's weird. I couldn't get back beyond April 2018. Do I realize that even now, I don't know how to search? So I tried to find my first tweet. I couldn't find it. So it's straight into business. So it was on June 18. of 2009, you were actually on Twitter earlier than that,

but you didn't tweet for a bunch of months. Didn't, not. That was very fun for me. That might explain why I couldn't find them. Yeah. I spent last night trying to find your tweets and just none coming up and being like, hang on, and then I realised you hadn't tweeted

for a few months when you set up your account. So your first tweet on June 18, 2009 is, and please, all the expenses are finally up on the parliamentary website. C minor at www.p.p.com or www. edball.com. And then you follow up with apologies. I'm a Twitter novice. I'm lying in bed trying to figure this one out. Is that really what I did the first one?

Yeah. Straight in with expenses. Should I tell you what happened? Yeah. Tom Watson, oh friend of mine, he was cabinet office minister, became definitely the Labour Party, very early social media adopter. He said to me in 2008,

he said you've got to do Twitter. It's going to be the thing. It wasn't wrong. No, no, but I think I was one of the very first. I was really early as a politician. You were. You were four years before me, and I was like 19 and like on the vibe. So I was a cabinet minister with a Twitter account.

So cool. And then, and so I set it up because Tom tells me to you, and then I'm getting the train up to Yorkshire from London on a Friday, back to the constituency. And I pressed this button. I think somebody said to me, would I like more followers? So I said, yes, thinking, isn't that what we're supposed to want? And it was one of those automatic kind of things where, you know,

subscribe to get more followers. Oh, no. Yeah, and it was kind of like, oh, a disaster. And I started getting these things that appear on my timeline saying, they're all about me wanting more, and so it was a disaster. Oh, no. And you don't know what to do. I didn't know what to do.

So I then rang him and he said, delete it, delete it. So I deleted it. And that was my first one. And I was so destabilized by this, but I then did nothing for six months. That's what happened. I was so devastated by this. So, you know, my history of Scrutos with Twitter

It goes back a very, very, very long way. I was going to ask, you know, what training did you get as a politician going on to Twitter? I think you've answered your question, but maybe you'd like to expand. Do you remember, you see, David Cameron, years later, say too many tweets make a, it was a bad, it's a twathe as it. But I said that on a interview on LBC. But this was like years after. And back in this point, 2008-9, I mean, very, very few people had done it. And it was, and it felt quite scary.

And it was like walking into a public place and just deciding to address them. And you would never do that. It's like walking to a pub and say, here I am. I'm ordering a genitone. Why do we care? And just yelling that all the expenses are up on the parliamentary website. Did they start later on?

Did they start training you? Like what is the, what was the level of understanding of social media in Parliament by the time you say left. So I've never ever had a training course. Oh my God. But nor have I ever seen one advertised. Oh my God.

I don't think that anybody, at least in my day, and so it might be different the last two or three years, would ever have have social media training. And you did it all. I mean, we did have, there was an option to have media training

where you would go and learn to do a broad, cast interview, been social media training and never heard of it. I think that's crazy. I think everybody learned it by screwing it up or copying people who are doing it better.

And we've just said how difficult it is for politicians to make mistakes and how much a campaign can say hinge on a picture of someone eating a sandwich going viral on social. And they're not taking it seriously. I mean, hopefully they are now. I found that's absolutely fascinating because when I

went into Parliament in 2017 to the Upskin campaign, I was there for two years. And the one thing I came out with thinking was it is unbelievable how little, generally everyone understands the digital world and social media and how it can be used and more just strategy with it because what would happen is I'd go in and have various meetings on different things. Every time I'd talk about it, I'd be met with like blank faces. And I think I realized during campaigning what a tool that was that I understood social media in a very deep way and strategy because I used to work in advertising as well. And they had no idea. And I don't, and I think there's a lot of misconceptions about Parliament. I think people imagine you've got teams of people who are doing long-term, you know, social media strategy campaigns with you and stuff.

And it's just not like that, is it? Even conversations about political campaigns being really good on social media. It has only really been said in the last four or five years, I would say. I don't remember pre-2015 that being the kind of thing people talked about that much. How you would use a social media campaign. Because we always, we kind of thought campaigns were where you advertise in the newspapers on television. vision and did interviews. Yeah, in campaigns and stuff. Exactly. And that has, that has changed a lot. And nowadays, I think there would be, there's huge teams and lots of engagement there.

What would you say is your worst place? I'd argue it's, I'd argue this is your best one and then you shouldn't be very proud of it. If it's the one we're thinking of. Well, there have been quite a few bad places over the years. And actually, one of the ones that, I'd argue, I'd argue, I'd argue, I'd argue, I have a, there is a post I put up of me being tasered. I saw that one. Which is actually quite quite, quite, I mean, in terms of, in terms of pain literally linked to what is in the tweet, the tasering is, but it's got to be, I'm afraid, in the end.

It's got to be my own name, isn't it? Oh my God, it has. I was wondering, I didn't want to bring it up. I was like, how are we going to do this if you're not going to say the best? Because I would say, honestly, I believe, and for the reasons that I will set out, that I think this is your best post. because I think that it's one of the most relatable sort of things I've ever seen on Twitter.

Everyone's done something like that. And not only did you not delete it, maybe at first because you didn't know how to. But then as it progressed, you did for years. Okay, you didn't know how to for years. I didn't. I didn't find out until two years later. If I had known, I might have done it quickly. Okay.

Once it took off, Caitlin Moran, we retweeted it apparently in the first hour. It was her fault. She had loads of followers. I mean, it might have just never been noticed. I think it probably would have been. But it's not surprising everyone loves it so much. It's become now a national day. So I suppose in your own words,

you want to just explain what we're talking about for anyone who doesn't know about it. It was a day before the royal wedding. And we were having a street party with all the people who live on our road in Casper, Yorkshire. and we're going to do pool pork barbecue overnight, 25 people. And I've gone to Azda in Kassafin in order to do the buy the stuff. And as I'm going around, I had my Blackberry in my pocket.

And it turns out, unbeknown to me, there is an Uber Twitter glitch. And so one of my office people rang me and said, you need to look at this. And I said, how do I find it? And she said, just search your name and it will come up. It's on Twitter. So I do. and then the Uber Twitter glitch it seemingly went back in my pocket

it got knocked and it tweeted my name. But I had no idea until half an hour later as I'm leaving, my media person rings me and said, why did you tweet your own name? And I say, what are you talking about? And I said, I didn't even know, so I look it up and you know, if I either

was a thought at that time, by the way, my media girl went on to be head of communications. He's kind of head of communications for Facebook for Europe, having also work for a head of comedic, but back then in 2011, he never said to be deleted. He didn't know either. Oh my gosh. So anyway, but then we just ignore it.

Then it'll go away. And don't even think about it. And then two hours later, he rings me again and says, you know, this has just got a bit weird. So you just go and look at what's happening. I said, it's Friday night, I'm preparing the barbecue. And there's all these people retweeted this thing. And it was kind of like, weird. And it was, it was, and I remember it was sort of slightly surreal, but kind of fun.

and, you know, my name kind of lends itself to this kind of thing anyway. So that is, and then it went. And so then nobody thought anything at all about it at all until the following year, like two weeks before, suddenly these tweets start to appear. Kind of almost like a mystery. And there would be, I remember, the one I remember was, you know, when you go on the tube and they have the list of lines saying, you know, delays. Yeah. And somebody wrote the Victoria Line, Northern Line, Bakerloo Line, Line line. Ed Balls.

I'm sorry. So for anyone who doesn't know, people just tweeted to commemorate Ed Ball's Day, 28th of April every year. We've actually just celebrated the ninth consecutive Ed Balls day and people just celebrate

by tweeting Ed Bulls. But it's interesting because now people make mistakes a lot, but it was one of the first kind of high profile things like that that happened. I suppose that's true. But quite how it became something which people went back to,

I mean, I've done interviews about other things in America, India, Australia, why I get asked about it. Wow. I actually was asked to go into a speech to a business local government association in Florida, go all the way to make this speech, asked to meet the organizers and say to them, you know, why did you want me? There was the head of communications for Diageo in the Southern American states who said, we wanted just to meet the guy in the tweet. Oh, my God. That was, what? Can I ask you a personal kind of question and answer honestly? You're obviously someone who's done amazing things.

You've had an amazing career and this thing has been such a big part of your public persona and all that stuff. Are you annoyed about it when people bring it up? Does it kind of annoy you or are you quite happy to laugh about it still? I think if you can't laugh at it, then you'd go completely crazy. I agree. And if you said to me when I was 21, you'll have a day which people celebrate in their tens of thousands around the world. in your memory, I would say, well, that's great. And he told me it will be because of a social media mishap.

I wouldn't have known what you're talking about, obviously, when I was 21. But I think, I think, you know, I mean, that other people have days named after them for greater achievements than mine. So in that sense, it's sort of slightly kind of think. But on the other hand, you know, just to think, if people enjoy it, it's fun. And I think that if I ever looked like I was taking it seriously by being either annoyed about it or enjoying it, then it would backfire because Twitter doesn't like that. I've just got to shrug my shoulders and think, you know, whatever.

There was one year where everybody went a bit crazy in the advertising world. Virgin did a plane with Ed Ball's odd with me being like the emblem at the front. There was a Pizza Hut Pizza. Marmite renamed the Marmite pot. The National Trust have done Ed Ball's adverts. And so it would be ridiculous not to smile at that. Oh, it's just so fun. we are. And, you know, I mean, I could have made a different and maybe greater contribution for society. And maybe there's some of things I did in my career which, which were important,

but aren't commemorated by day. But you've just got a smile. We'll go on to your best post as well. I've done seven and a half thousand. There must be some good ones in there. Oh, sure. As I said, I still, I still get people asking me to retweet a relizade malazania recipe. I had a, I had a, I had a, I had a, I had a, I had a, I had a, I had a, I had a, I'm a, I had a retweet of my name by Mark Hamill, Luke Skywalker. Oh, that's a good one. That was a good one. My best one, though, actually came from the closing night of the Olympics, Olympic ceremony.

And it's not clear at all from the tweet why it's so good. But it was the closing ceremony and the Spice Girls were playing. And then the Plitzklapped for the Sunday time says, you know, but what about Spandau Ballet? And I don't say, this is the question. Because, of course, you know, Spandau Ballet, one of their big songs, was gold. gold medal Olympic ceremony. I've been a big Spander Valley fan in the

80s. We all were. We've got a new romantic, slightly long hair. And why weren't Spander Valley at the Olympics? That's a really good point. And I do a second tweet saying, you know, we should have Spander Ballet or ELO. Two years later, we get a call to the office when I'm Shadow Chancellor to say

we hear that Ed is a really big Spander Valley fan. We're doing a special celebration of Spander Valley's career and at two-hour ITV Saturday night show. And we want a couple of people who'd be willing to talk about their love of Spandah Ballet and would he, would he fill about Spandah Ballet? Oh my God.

So I say, well, of course I will. So they come to the Shadda Cabinet room in Parliament with all their cameras for me to say, to cut a long story short, they're indestructible. And then, and then if you're not a Spander Ballet fan, you'd no idea why this is. By the way, that was really good. It's a lyric. It's a lyric from a song. It's very good.

So then, and then we get invited to go to the live filming of Spanda Ballet's special concert. I meet, you know, the Kemp's, I meet, I meet, I meet, I meet, I meet the, you know, I meet Tony Hadley. We took our two younger kids. And then after the end of their first song, and the producers are all saying, could you really cheer and root really loudly because get the atmosphere in the studios? We've all stood up to cheer, other than our youngest daughter.

She doesn't understand that. as we all sit down, we turn to and say, you know, you need to stand up because we might be on camera. She said, she said, who are these men and why are they so old? Oh, my God. And she had absolutely no idea who they were, why we were there, or whatever. So for her, this was a slightly kind of disappointing evening. But for me, it was one of the great nights of my life to be there on stage, you know, on the video, my tribute to Spander Valley, and that all happened because of one tweet.

That is a mess tweet. Normally people's best tweets are like, oh, I said something quite funny. That was like a brilliant best tweet. I know, but it was such a mild tweet, whilst Fanderbally in the closing ceremony. And suddenly, I go from that to being one of their greatest fans. Well, of course, you know, I've become even more of a fan over the years now. Yeah.

That's what happens when you need to tweet more about your preferences. You might be invited to loads of stuff. Actually, I saw you tweeting about Beyonce's Glastonbury set on BBCI player. Maybe you'll be the next. Well, I mean, that is an astounded. Honest you. Oh, she's amazing. Did you know, Ed, Beyonce,

your favourite artist, has her new album out on July 31st? I'm looking forward to tweet about that. You'll be invited to this showing of it. Do the dance.

That's all do the dance. That song is very much targeted. Hey, you, Lou. Hey, Lou. Shall we do follow and follow block? So follow and follow block is where we just give you three things. And you tell us whether you would follow, unfollow or block them.

I was going to give you football, politics and TV work. Like which would you follow, unfollow, and which would you block? And why? And just so I know, why can't I follow all of them? Because that's not the game. Okay. In that case, I'm going to follow politics. Okay. Because politics, I think, is the one thing.

where I feel as though I want to be able to be able to immerse quickly on any day. If I were to do something, I would feel cut off if I wasn't able to immerse myself into the politics world of Twitter. I think football, I learned that basically doing Twitter link to football, if you have a link to a football club, it's basically a catastrophe. Okay. Because any time we won, are you doing? a tweet, nobody cares. But the moment you've done one when you've won, and if you lose,

you also have to do one. And when you do one, the whole world piles in and says, I was a chair with the football club, it's your fault. Oh, yeah. And therefore, the best thing to do was never to tweet if you've lost, which means you can't tweet when you've won. The best thing to do is not tweet at all. So basically read the newspaper, read the program, don't do Twitter. Right. And then, and so football is going to be, it's going to be block. And then TV work, I mean, in a way, because you only gave me three choices, that ends up becoming the other one.

I sort of think. But you still get to see that stuff. You haven't blocked it. You still get to kind of be involved with it because you've unfollowed it, but it's still there. Yeah. And also, I don't think I use Twitter so much in my TV work. If I'm travelling for work when we're filming, I will use Twitter as a way of keeping in touch with what's going on back at home rather than it being something which I need for my. Yeah.

Well, that was good. That was some good strong answer. Ed Bulls, thank you so much for coming on our podcast. We've loved having you. It's been a pleasure. It's been a great. It's been a lovely to have you. And please do follow Ed on Twitter at Ed Balls.

And of course on the 20th of April, please do acknowledge the day. Celebrate him. And then also he's on Instagram at Ed Ball's 1967. And do follow us at Might Delete Later Pod on Instagram and at Might Delete Pod on Twitter as well. Remember, social media can be fun and useful. Which is weird because why am I crying? Stevie hates it. But however you feel about it, if it starts to make you feel bad, you can always delete later

or just exclusively, tweet your own name. Thanks being here, Ed Bulls, we love you. Bye.