Inside the meeting rooms of ’s plush London headquarters, bosses have agonised all week over ‘the Ed problem’.
For Ed Balls, the Leftie former Labour shadow chancellor and host of Good Morning Britain, has caused yet another headache for the show’s hierarchy.
Sources at the broadcaster tell me that senior bosses have despaired so much that they’ve brought in an external crisis communications firm to help them sail through a politically sensitive storm of Balls’ making – a rare step, indeed.
The TV host is in hot water following his interview with a Jewish anti-Semitism campaigner last Monday that ended in the host being accused of anti-Semitism – and which attracted a large number of complaints. I am told that ‘Red Ed’, as he is nicknamed in the corridors of ITV’s White City HQ, was summoned upstairs to be told by bosses that his questioning was ‘not the right tone’.
The anchor had been interviewing Jewish author Dov Forman following the anti-Semitic arson attack on a Jewish charity’s ambulance fleet last week. During the live exchange, Balls asked Forman – who was standing at the scene in Golders Green, north London, with emergency vehicles behind him – whether he would condemn similar intolerance against Muslim people.
Balls said: ‘And Dov, when you see last week the Shadow Justice Secretary Nick Timothy singling out the Mayor of London Sir for praying in Trafalgar Square in a Muslim group and saying that is wrong and shouldn’t happen. Isn’t that the kind of intolerance and divisiveness which is causing problems in the Jewish community right now? Do you condemn that as well?’
For 22-year-old Forman there was no equivalence between an arson attack and criticism of mass praying in a public space.
ITV host Ed Balls is in hot water following his interview with a Jewish anti-Semitism campaigner last Monday
Balls asked Dov Forman – who was standing at the scene of an anti-Semitic attack– whether he would condemn similar intolerance against Muslim people
Pushing back, the anti-Semitism campaigner insisted the issue being discussed should remain focused on anti-Semitism rather than broader political disputes. Cue the complaints and ITV soon issued an apology.
In his dressing down by bosses, Balls, whose wife is Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, was warned to ‘stop being a politician and concentrate on being a TV presenter’. Sources tell me the affair has exasperated ITV’s director of News Andrew Dagnell, who had already been watching Balls ‘like a hawk’ to ensure there is no political bias in his interviews. He was so concerned by the presenter’s remarks that he held a meeting with Karen Newman, vice-president of the Jewish Board of Deputies, alongside other Jewish community leaders. Representatives from ITV’s Jewish staff were also present after making complaints. I’m told that the meeting was ‘both heated and constructive’.
One source in the room said: ‘My impression is that Ed forgot he was interviewing Forman about the Golders Green attack, and for one moment placed him alongside those politicians who were the previous week calling for Muslim Ramadan prayers to be banned. You just can’t show any political bias if you are a presenter. It’s asking for trouble.’
A source said: ‘Ed agreed that his interview didn’t hit the right tone, there is a climate of intolerance to minority religions and Ed accepted that he carried out the interview in a clumsy way.’
But, the source added, ‘to be fair to Ed, it was a breaking news story and Dov had only been booked that morning, so there wasn’t long for the presenters [his co-host Susanna Reid included] to get their heads around it all’.
‘Instead of concentrating solely on speaking to a young Jewish man and getting his thoughts and concerns about the latest hideous anti-Semitic attack to rock the community, it was as though Ed had other issues that he wanted to put to Forman.’
An ITV source confirmed that Balls has now been warned ‘from the very highest level’ that he must stop using the GMB role as his political hobby horse.
