Blubber Balls: Can politicians benefit from the crying game?

SHADOW chancellor Ed Balls disclosed in an interview with Total Politics magazine that he is often moved to tears by the television show Antiques Roadshow and certain songs from The Sound of Music. But should politicians reveal their soft side - and can we believe them anyway?
 
Stiff upper lip
It’s a dark day when you discover that you’re more cynical than Ed Balls, says Rowan Pelling in The Daily Telegraph. Labour’s rottweiler says he brims over whenever an eye-popping valuation on Antiques Roadshow leads a punter to declare: "It means more to me than money." But the moment I (Pelling) see the punter trying to disguise the dollar signs in their eyes is "usually the point I start to guffaw".
 
You can tell me we live in a touch-feely, post-Diana world, but that doesn't mean I want to see crying politicians, says Natalie Haynes in The Independent. "The worrying thing is that [Balls] has clearly revealed this soft side of himself to us in the hope that it will make him more voter-friendly."
 
I don't mind if Russell Grant cries when he is voted off Strictly Come Dancing, adds Haynes, “but if you’re aiming to run the economy rather than read my stars, I'd like you to find your stiff upper lip again".
 
Balls may be a pugnacious troll of a politician, with a face like a bullfrog chewing on a wasp, yet he's also fragile, says Judith Woods in the Telegraph. "But please dry those pouchy little eyes and get back to biting the heads off backbenchers."
 
It will be tough hiding your true colours, adds Woods, but now is the hour for steely resolve. "In the midst of a fiscal meltdown we need iron chancellors - not chocolate soldiers."
 
Winning over the public
The rehab begins here, says John Crace in The Guardian. Balls has clearly been told he needs to show his softer side if he wants to win the public over. But Antique’s Roadshow? "If Balls really believes that people are being truthful when they say, 'I'm amazed it's worth that much, but it means more to me than money', then he must be a simpleton."
 
Which raises the question of what would be worse, adds Crace: "A shadow chancellor who feels the need to lie about crying about a Sunday night staple schedule filler ... or one who really does cry at Antiques Roadshow?"
 
Balls understands the politics of crying, says Tim Shipman in the Daily Mail. Tears are a no-no if you are seen as a bit of a softie, but they are a positive modifier if, like Balls and or Gordon Brown, "your political reputation is that of an uncompromising bruiser". Balls is finding out that tears are more difficult to carry off if you are seen by voters as "an inveterate deceiver".
 
Blubber Balls's admission raises the question of whether politicians' emotions are helpful and to whom, says Quentin Letts, also in the Mail. Richard Nixon claimed he never cried "except in public". But Balls has miscued with the absurd example of Antiques Roadshow, "laying bare the shallowness of his strategy". ·