Balls does a Portillo

The defining moment of the 1983 election (in which I was running a Conservative polling district in Bristol on polling day) was Tony Benn's defeat in Bristol East.

The defining moment of the 1997 election was that of Michael Portillo, and after the election one famous question was "Were you still up for Portillo?"

A key defining moment of the 2015 election was the defeat of Ed Balls.

Whatever you think of any of the three men, all three took their defeats with great dignity, showed respect for the decision of the voters and in turn earned respect from anyone watching who was not a completely incorrigible partisan (e.g. someone far more partisan than me.)

Michael Portillo reinvented himself after his 1997 defeat, with a change in approach about which many were cynical at the time but with hindsight appears to have been completely genuine, and it looks like Ed Balls may be doing the same.

See this fascinating Telegraph article,

"Ed Balls: I was one of the reasons Labour was unelectable."

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