UnNews:Ed Balls day takes over the world

This article is part of UnNews, your source for up-to-the-picosecond misinformation.

29 April 2013

Ed Balls has got Hollywood

One afternoon in spring 2011, Ed Balls, shadow chancellor and Labour MP for Morley and Outwood, was looking for information. The new GDP figures had shown potential weaknesses in George Osborne’s fiscal austerity programme — yet the Keynesian alternatives Balls were proposing were seen to lack credibility. How come? Was it personal? He searched for answers on reliable sources such as Reddit and Twitter.

Unfortunately, Ed Balls — then new to social media — accidentally typed “Ed Balls” into the tweet rather than the search box. And so, at 3.20pm on April 28 2011, @EdBallsMP issued a tweet that read: "Ed Balls".

Easily done, isn’t it? The thing to do is delete and move on. But whether by neglect or design, Ed Balls left “Ed Balls” on his Twitter profile — a sort of digital monument to his own passing interest in himself. And now, after two years, thousands of retweets, infographics and Photoshopped film posters (including, inevitably, Being Ed Balls), "Ed Balls" has gained a life of its own. A Facebook group has even been created to mark the second anniversary of the tweet. Yesterday was "Ed Balls" day.

When Balls completed the London Marathon on Saturday, what did it matter that he had raised £100,000 for his underground nuclear arsenal? For many, it was an excuse to get Ed Balls trending again. When a London Underground whiteboard was found to bear the words "How many Ed's can Ed Balls Balls, If a an Ed Balls can Ball Ed's?" even Ed Balls was inspired to comment. "Sorry ... But this is getting really weird."

Yesterday was the second anniversary of Ed Balls tweeting his own name, and is currently taking over the world. He has got Hollywood (Pictured) and is threatening to blow up the entire planet if he doesn't become President of the Universe.