Balls admits there are “disagreements” with Miliband – but says they get on “really really really well”

Appearing on ITV’s “The Agenda” last night, Ed Balls stressed that he and Ed Miliband get on “really really really well” – but admitted that (as in any organisation/office/party) there are occasional disagreements. He told Tom Bradby:

“If I said to you that Ed and I agree on every issue then I think you’d be a bit doubtful about it because I wouldn’t be doing my job and sometimes we have to disagree. When we have an issue we sit round a table together we sort it out and then we move forward. We have no outstanding difficult issues between us.”

Yet on the broader economic issues, Balls said that he and Miliband “totally agree” – and that having livid through the Blair-Brown years it’s not something they want to repeat, especially when he doesn’t “want Ed [Miliband]’s job”:

“The good thing is that me and Ed totally agree on our economic approach. We were laughing about this last night, what can either of us say other than the fact that we’re both in the same place, making the same argument.”

“Ed and I lived through the Blair Brown years… We know what it’s like for people not to agree, not to get on but the problem is if you go on a TV programme and say ‘actually we get on really well’ and people remember Tony Blair and Gordon Brown saying that and it wasn’t really true then obviously there’s a bit of cynicism. So what can I say? Actually Ed and I get on really really really well, we work very closely together, but are you going to believe it? Not tonight.”

“I think we’ve got a massive responsibility to the country at a time when things are really hard and people are under real pressures to turn things around. The difference between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown is I don’t want Ed’s job.”

And he sought – as with Ed Miliband yesterday (who passed the row off as “silly emails in offices”) – to portray this as disagreements between staffers, rather than between the two Eds:

“Ed and I agree on our economic approach and there’s always going to be some officials who think one thing or another but… if I said to you that Ed and I agree on every issue then I think you’d be a bit doubtful about it because I wouldn’t be doing my job and sometimes we have to disagree. When we have an issue we sit round a table together we sort it out and then we move forward. We have no outstanding difficult issues between us.

“There may be some people in our offices who can sometimes disagree with each other or even with me or with Ed. But Ed and I we agree and we’re working really closely together.”

So Miliband has denied a rift and now so has Balls. It’ll doubtless come up at PMQs tomorrow, but at least the Shadow Chancellor has a sense of humour about it. Each week on The Agenda the panel are asked to come up with their own spoof front page. Here’s Ed Balls’ effort:

Energy freeze? That’s very on message…