Is Ed Balls charming? I’m really struggling with this question, watching Travels in Euroland With Ed Balls (Thursday, 9pm, BBC Two), a three-part series, for some reason, where Ed Balls goes around Europe asking workers why they voted for far-right parties and always getting the exact same answer, again and again and again, but occasionally doing what-the-humans-do bits in between to make it a TV programme rather than a doomed campaign trail. So we see Ed Balls take a castanet-clacking dance class in Spain, or Ed Balls swimming in the frigid northern sea, Ed Balls for some reason inviting himself into a succession of European homes to make himself a coffee or Ed Balls waving silently at someone’s non-English speaking mum.
And throughout this, you are stuck in this strange liminal relationship with Balls, torn somewhere between liking him and not: why is Ed Balls in Europe again? And why are you watching him? The answer is: a new front of far-right-leaning populist parties have found continental success (basically, every European country now has its own version of Ukip, which is ironically quite a nightmare for Ukip itself: they come over here, don’t they, and steal our intolerance), and Ed Balls wants to know why.
To do this, he goes on a Dutch fishing boat and asks the fisherman why they voted for the Netherlands’ Partij voor de Vrijheid (it’s not because they’re racist, it’s because PVV is standing up for the fishing industry), then goes to a traditional video shoot for Black Pete, the odd Dutch tradition of yuletide blackface, and asks the director there why he voted Partij voor de Vrijheid (it’s not because they’re racist, it’s because PVV is standing up for the Christmas blackface industry). Then he goes to Spain and meets the bullfighters (you get the picture), as well as the border guards for the 11km wall that divides the Spanish coast from Morocco (etc).
The same message recurs throughout Euroland, from country to country and weird tradition to weird tradition: there is a boost in populism on the continent because most far-right parties offer something that could feasibly be described as “aggressive status quo” and they win a lot of votes based on that, and that they happen to tack on virulent anti-immigration rhetoric in with it is neither here nor there to most voters.
If Balls made this discovery, say – and I’m spitballing – when he was part of a Labour party that could have done something about it, rather than now when he’s the man who came sixth on Strictly once, maybe the whole endeavour would feel less redundant. I’m not saying Labour should have come out absolutely swinging in favour of that cheese-rolling tournament they have in Gloucester every year, or gone to the debates with the message “Make Lewes Bonfire Night Great Again Or At Least Keep It Exactly As Great As It Is”. But I am saying that, based on evidence gleaned from watching Ed Balls jumping into the sea with some cheerful Dutch lads who love fish and have some incredibly iffy ideas about the role Muslims play in society, it probably would have won them a lot of votes.