I've battled a stammer all my life, reveals Schools Secretary Ed Balls


Schools Secretary Ed Balls

Battle: Schools Secretary Ed Balls has had to overcome a stammer

As one of Gordon Brown's closest allies, Ed Balls is known for his straight-talking and only this week was branded a 'bully' for refusing to give in to MPs.

But the Schools Secretary revealed a softer side yesterday when he admitted he has spent his life battling a stammer.

Mr Balls, 42, who has worked alongside Gordon Brown for 15 years, was launching a new guide to help stammering children.

He said: 'It's not something you ever get cured of. You have it throughout your life and you deal with it. I have never denied it. But today isn't about me, it's about the hundreds of children who need help.

'They need to know that you can go on to be a journalist, a top singer like Gareth Gates or a politician who makes two or three speeches a day. If you get the right help you can have confidence in yourself.'

He added: 'It is tough and it's true for all these people who do these jobs every day but you deal with it.'

The Minister was at the Michael Palin Centre for stammering children, in Islington, north London.

He decided to open up after being moved by a video showing children aged four to 18 with stammers explaining how it affects their lives and what help they need.

They asked teachers not to finish their sentences for them and to be given more time to speak.

Mr Balls pledged an extra £500million in government funding to the centre set up by the former Monty Python Star.

And he said a fundraising appeal would be launched by Christmas to raise money for a second centre in the north of England.

'Compared to what is happening here there is a real gap (in the north). Having a stammer, it's about who you are, it's not something you catch and it's not something that's ever cured,' he said.

'The children in this DVD want to be open about it and not to be told not to do what they need to do in order to get their words out but they also want to, in the words of one of the boys, 'sort it out'. With the right kind of therapy you can go on to achieve.'

Michael Palin
Gareth Gates

Hope: Michael Palin (l) who has set-up a centre for stammering children and Gareth Gates who had a serious stammer but went on to be a singer

The film is part of a drive commissioned by the Department of Children, Schools and Families and was produced by the Michael Palin Centre.

Mr Palin, now a TV presenter and author, told the launch how his father had struggled with a severe stammer but would never talk about it.

He said: 'It was always there waiting to ambush him in the middle of a story or a joke.'

His father would have had a 'very different life' had he received the kind of specialist help offered by the centre, he added.

'Stammering seems to have been the rather poor child of charities but it's more of a problem nowadays than it's ever been because we live in such a fast-moving world. If you are left behind people tend to think you are stupid and not up to the mark.'

Norbert Lieckfeldt, chief executive of the British Stammering Association, said: 'It is true that Ed Balls has personal experience of stammering in his youth and this allows him to speak to teenagers and young people who stammer with authenticity.

'But, if anything, I believe it has strengthened his conviction that every child with speech, language and communication needs, whether they stammer or have other needs, needs extra help and support if they are to thrive and succeed at school.

'In my almost 20 years of working in this field, I have never seen this level of support for all children with speech, language and communication needs from any previous government, of any political colour.'

The launch also heard that the Prince of Wales had agreed to act as patron for the fundraising appeal for the Michael Palin centre.


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