Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper proudly showed off their babies despite the shadow chancellor's claims he would not use his family | Daily Mail Online Ed Balls yesterday took a stand against politicians parading their families in a thinly-veiled attack on Labour leader Ed Miliband. But embarrassingly for the shadow chancellor, these pictures show him doing exactly that. Mr Balls declared he would 'never ever' allow photos of his family to be used, no matter how 'short term, tactical and tempting' it might be. Loving the camera: Mr Balls and wife Miss Cooper show off their newborn daughter Ellie in 1999 - despite the shadow chancellor's claims he would never publicly parade his family So he and wife Yvette Cooper must have had different reasons for posing with their newborn babies in the newspapers. One image from 1999 shows the proud parents beaming into the camera as they cuddle daughter Ellie, now 12. Another picture depicts the happy parents in 2001 with son Joe, 10, a mere three days after his birth.

Miss Cooper was a hotly-tipped Labour MP in the year of her first daughter's birth, while 1999 was also the year her husband was promoted from economic adviser to an adviser to the Treasury. The first married couple in the British cabinet were at that time delighted to share their joyful news with the Press, informing the newspapers that Ellie weighed a healthy 7lbs 4ozs. Yet when Mr Miliband and wife Justine appeared on the front page of the Daily Mirror with their two sons, Mr Balls said he would never involve Joe, Ellie or Maddy, seven, in such publicity. 'The most precious thing for me and us is definitely protecting our children so that they can be who they want to be,' he said. Oops, we did it again! The political couple are photographed for the papers with three-day-old son Joel with Miss Cooper in 1999 In Mr Miliband's very personal photos, published this week, the Labour leader holds son Samuel while wife Justine cuddles two-year-old Daniel. Further pictures inside showed the parents playing with their children in front of a Christmas tree. The portraits emerged with Mr Miliband under pressure over poor opinion polls and badly-received showings in the Commons.

David Cameron has also previously taken part in similar photoshoots, but speaking to the Fabian Review, Mr Balls pledged never to use his family for political gain. Without mentioning the Prime Minister or Mr Miliband, the shadow chancellor added: 'However short-term, tactical and tempting it might be to have pictures on the front of a Sunday magazine, we would never, ever do that.' It is not clear whether the interview was carried out before the Mirror article appeared. Mr Balls dismissed suggestions that he wanted to unseat Mr Miliband, to whom he lost in last year’s leadership contest. Family photo: Ed Miliband posed for this picture with his wife Justine and sons Daniel and Samuel. It appeared with a newspaper interview He insisted he backed the leader '100 per cent' and warned against the party 'turning in on itself', but added: 'Who knows what will happen in life?' 'I want to be Chancellor,' Mr Balls said. 'As I sit here today, I’m happy that is the summit of my ambition. (But) God knows what can happen in life.' The former Cabinet minister said he believed Mr Miliband was 'preparing the ground' and the electorate would eventually recognise the arguments Labour was putting forward.

'I’ve said to Ed (Miliband) a number of times: ‘You have to be good at opposition. You’ve got to be the answer to the big question,' he said. 'The best moment he’s had so far on doing that politically was phone hacking, though maybe that wasn’t a cut-through moment for my constituents in Morley in quite the way it was in Westminster.' Mr Balls went on: 'You have to prepare the ground so that when the question is asked, you are the answer. That’s what he’s doing.' At home with the Camerons: David Cameron had this publicity shot taken at his house with wife Samantha and his children just before the general election The shadow chancellor also disclosed that he had taken advice from former Prime Minister Tony Blair - with whom he has had a stormy relationship - before drafting his response to George Osborne’s autumn statement. Despite pledging to eschew family photoshoots, Mr Balls was willing give a glimpse into his home life. 'We have a continual debate about whether the presents should arrive in pillow cases or socks,' he said. 'I think pillow cases. Yvette thinks socks.

'My argument is that, with socks, you get less in.' Asked whether he was limiting his children’s gifts to reflect the country’s economic hardship, he replied: 'It all comes from Father Christmas.' Short memories: One picture of Miss Cooper posing with son Joe was used in the Daily Mail just eight years ago Family: Ed Balls with his wife Yvette Cooper who is also in the shadow cabinet. He said today he would not pose for a picture of his whole family Why is Ed Balls practising piano while Yvette Cooper gets the three children ready for school? - Fiona Phillips - Mirror Online News Opinion Why is Ed Balls practising piano while Yvette Cooper gets the three children ready for school? Mirror columnist and broadcaster Fiona Phillips is not impressed by the way the Shadow Chancellor dishes out the chores at home - even if wife Yvette is better Share Ed Balls: Chore bore (Photo: Reuters) Share Get daily updates directly to your inbox + Subscribe Could not subscribe, try again laterInvalid Email Here are the top five most-repeated phrases in my house: 1. “This bathroom is a disgrace”. 2. “Where the hell has all the loo roll gone?

I put a new one in here yesterday – are you eating it or ­something?” 3. “This bedroom is a disgrace”. 4. “Your clothes do not belong on the floor. Why do you think you’ve got a wardrobe and drawers?” 5. “I am fed up with everyone thinking that I’m the skivvy around here”. This last phrase is usually accompanied by me ­vigorously cleaning the kitchen worktop to expend some of my crossness. The answer to question 4, as I often discover in the ­teenager’s bedroom, is to hide things that shouldn’t be in the house, never mind the bedroom. I am still left with the Big Question though: Why is it that the three males in my house innately presume that I’m responsible for food-gathering, cooking and cleaning, as well as felling countless trees for the never-ending supply of toilet paper? The only comfort I take is knowing I’m not alone – that these skewed expectations also apply in the Cooper/Balls residence. In a radio interview, the Shadow Chancellor, Ed Balls, said he’d recently found out that the Chinese “do no housekeeping at all, no cleaning” on the first day of their New Year.

He then quipped: “In our household with Yvette, it’s Chinese New Year every day of the year.” Grrrrr, I can feel a vigorous rubbing of the worktop coming on. So how come the ­hard-working Shadow Home ­Secretary, an esteemed figure in the House of Commons, on the same salary as her husband, is, like me, reduced in her own house to the person responsible for dirt and diet? Oh, we know Mr Balls likes to cook. My husband can rummage up a few student dishes too, with the stuff I’ve trawled the supermarket for. But cooking’s easy – ­enjoyable even. Try doing it six nights out of seven, or ­breakfast, perhaps, the time when Yvette says Ed is practising the piano while she gets the three ­children ready for school. Why does it happen? Because we’re best at it. We’re cursed with the caring gene, that’s why. And the fact it’s taken advantage of has made me so cross I’m going to have to put a wash on... Oh man, is my blood boiling!

You are very lucky I am able to appear on my own page today, having nearly suffered a rupture of my carotid artery following a near-seizure prompted by rocketing blood pressure as a result of anger. The cause of this near-fatal incident was a card advertising a posh estate agents, which plopped on to my doormat. “What type of buyer are you?” it inquired. “The Entrepreneur?” (picture of MAN with a helicopter); “The Overseas Buyer?” (photo of two MEN discussing a property deal in Europe); “The Hedge Fund manager?” (picture of MALE City type); or “The School Buyer?” (picture of smug MAN (obvs head of the family) surrounded by insipid wife and two children – a BOY (the eldest, natch) and a girl in pink. AAAAAAAARGH! I will refuse to pay the mortgage this month and see what my building society MANager (a MAN) has to say about that.

Kate Middleton Duchess of Cambridge departs Northolt High School after visiting their art department (Photo: WENN) Kate's posh switch-off Yes, the royals are steeped in privilege but who, aged 32, would want to have to get dressed up in an evening gown on a Tuesday night, adorned with a necklace priceless enough to bail out the 140,000 people forced into rent arrears by the Bedroom Tax, to deliver a speech to a room full of pretentious, art-world pseudo intellectuals? No, I wouldn’t swap my life, or my Tuesday night EastEnders, for Kate’s – no matter how many diamond necklaces came my way. Double trouble for Tulisa Poor Tulisa Contostavlos seems to make more appearances in court than on TV these days. Thank goodness, then, that she seems to be sending someone else to stand in the dock for her when she can’t face it. Because this surely isn’t her face... is it? Call-up for care force A society is judged by its care of the most vulnerable. In which case, ours sucks.

Social care, although often garnering the best job-satisfaction figures, is still regarded as a low-paid, low-grade job that can, unfortunately, attract unsuitable candidates. Adult social-care workers can make the difference between a life worth living and a life that’s not. That’s how vital it is. There are some brilliantly dedicated care workers out there but more are needed. I had a meeting with Skills for Care this week. With up to a million more workers needed by 2025, they’re keen to recruit those with a passion for compassion. Find out more at skillsforcare.org . Michael Gove: Obviously delighted (Photo: Reuters) Yvette Cooper, Ed Balls' wife, announces Labour leader bid | Daily Mail Online comments Yvette Cooper has become the fourth candidate to declare she will stand for the Labour leadership. The shadow home secretary has thrown her hat into the ring to replace Ed Miliband with a pledge to 'make life better for families.' She joins Blairite Liz Kendall who was first out of the traps on Sunday, followed shortly after by the rising Labour star Chuka Umunna and early favourite Andy Burnham in the race for the leadership.

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper, picture during a visit to Stanville Primary School in Birminham, has joined the race to be Labour leader Ms Cooper, a 46-year-old mother of three who is married to the former shadow chancellor Ed Balls, has strong support among MPs but will face accusations that she is too close to Labour's failed old guard. The announcement comes a week after Labour's crushing defeat at the General Election where her husband lost his seat. RELATED ARTICLES Share this article Share Ms Cooper told The Daily Mirror that Labour lost the election because it failed to convince voters it 'had the answers to match up with their ambitions'. The former work and pensions secretary rejected calls to 'go back to the remedies of the past' that worked for former prime minister Tony Blair. Ms Cooper said she wanted Labour to 'move beyond the old labels of left and right' and be 'credible, compassionate, creative and connected to the day-to-day realities of life'. 'In the end, Labour didn't convince enough people that we had the answers,' she wrote in an article for the paper. 'They liked a lot of what we had to say, about raising the minimum wage, expanding childcare, cutting tax for low-paid workers and banning bad zero-hours contracts.

'But for many people it wasn't enough to give them hope and confidence we could match all their ambitions for the future. Ms Cooper, a 46-year-old mother of three who is married to the former shadow chancellor Ed Balls, has strong support among MPs but will face accusations that she is too close to Labour's failed old guard Labour's home affairs select committee chair Keith Vaz (left) and former London mayor Ken Livingstone, as members of the national executive committee, arrived in central London today to help set the rules for the party's leadership contest 'And when there's too little hope, optimism or confidence, the politics of anger, fear and division takes over - that's what the Tories, the SNP and Ukip all exploited and campaigned on in this election. 'The fracturing of politics reflects the fracturing of our country and our communities. Divided between rich and poor, north and south, city and small town. And it leaves Britain a darker, narrower place. 'But that's why Labour needs to be bigger in our appeal, bolder in our ambitions and brighter about the future. 'Going back to the remedies of the past, of Gordon Brown or Tony Blair, won't keep up with the way the world has changed.

We need a Labour Party that moves beyond the old labels of left and right, and focuses four-square on the future. Credible, compassionate, creative, and connected to the day-to-day realities of life.' Ms Cooper added: 'I don't want to be the next leader of the Labour Party just because there's a vacancy. I want to make life better for Britain's families. It isn't enough to say we can stop bad things happening - we need to show how good we can be for people too.' She is likely to face a strong challenge from the shadow health secretary Andy Burnham - a firm favourite among party members and trade unions after campaigning against Tory 'privatisation' of the NHS. Margaret Beckett arrives for the Labour party national executive committee meeting at Westminster in central London this afternoon Sources close to Ms Cooper have revealed that she wavered over whether she wanted to stand for the top job, but changed her mind following last week's crushing election defeat. Her husband, Mr Balls, stood to be Labour leader in 2010 – but cannot be a candidate this time losing his seat in one of the biggest upsets of the election night.

Ms Cooper is expected to draw support from across the party's MPs – with allies of Gordon Brown expected to rally behind her. She is to make a 'kitchen table pitch' as a working mother who understands the concerns of ordinary families. Allies say the party needs a 'credible' woman in charge – and not just someone 'with old ideas and a shiny face' - in a thinly-veiled dig at the Blairite candidate Ms Kendall. But she will face accusations that she is too close to toxic figures including Mr Brown and her husband. Mr Burnham – the shadow Health Secretary – is likely to be Ms Cooper's main rival for trade union backing, but has yet to formally announce whether or not he will stand. Friends of Mr Burnham, who is understood to have the backing of up to a quarter of the party's MPs, expect him to formally announce his bid on Friday. Labour's national executive committee will meet today to fix the timetable for the leadership election.

Shadow business secretary Chuka Umunna, 36, became the second Labour MP to join the race to succeed Ed Miliband, releasing a video message online Mr Umunna was spotted hand in hand with his girlfriend Alice Sullivan shortly before his first interview following Labour's election defeat The two favourites to win the leadership, Ms Cooper and Mr Burnham, are pushing for a shorter contest to stop any of the outsiders gaining momentum. But the party looks set to allow the contest to drag on until September – to allow the main candidates to debate why the party suffered its worst election defeat in almost 30 years. A source close to Ms Cooper told MailOnline she was likely to put her name forward shortly after the national executive committee's announcement today. The source said: 'In terms of her thinking, she is getting a lot – a lot – of people who would like her to put herself forward. She is thinking about it – I would say she is more likely than not. 'We need a woman who is credible, who brings the experience and is not just old ideas with a shiny face.

We need to not get caught in old battles with new people fronting them up.' Others tipped to join the race are shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt and at least one MP representing the hard left of the party – possibly the north east MP Ian Lavery. It came as it emerged the Labour party knew it was behind in the polls from as early as last year, according to an internal pollster. James Morris, who worked for Labour from when Ed Miliband was elected as leader in 2010 until the general election, said public polling showed a much more favourable position than the party's internal data, both in the run-up to and during the campaign. He said Labour's own polls showed they were seven points lower than those made available to the public in the run-up to last Thursday's election which saw the Conservatives scoop a majority. THE RISE OF YVETTE COOPER: DAUGHTER OF A TRADE UNION CHIEF WHO DREAMED OF BEING PRIME MINISTER IS SET TO FINALLY STEP OUT OF HER HUSBAND ED BALLS'S SHADOW Yvette Cooper allegedly boasted to classmates at school that she would become Prime Minister It wasn't supposed to be this way.

By now, Yvette Cooper was supposed to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, serving under her husband – the Prime Minister Ed Balls. In 2010, after her political mentor Gordon Brown was forced out of Downing Street, Ms Cooper stood aside to let Mr Balls stand for the Labour leadership. Many analysts thought Labour's power couple had chosen the wrong person. In the end, with Diane Abbott as the only woman on the ballot paper, Mr Balls finished a distant third behind the two Milibands. But with Mr Balls finally out of the way after being kicked out of Parliament last week, some believe Ms Cooper's time has come. The mother of three, who reportedly burst into tears as she watched her husband's election defeat, is finally set to announce her bid to lead the party. It has been a long time coming for the 45-year-old shadow home secretary. As the teenage daughter of a trade union leader she would reportedly tell anyone who would listen at her Hampshire comprehensive that she wanted to be prime minister – though she denies this.

She first began working for the Labour party in 1990 after a stellar academic career at Oxford, Harvard and the London School of Economics – and a brief stint working for the former US President Bill Clinton. Ms Cooper first joined the party working for Harriet Harman before being poached by Gordon Brown. After a brief spell working as an economic journalist for the Independent newspaper, Ms Cooper became MP for the Labour safe seat of Pontefract and Castleford in 1997 – before steadily rising through the ranks, eventually becoming Gordon Brown's Treasury Secretary. In 1998, Miss Cooper and Mr Balls married at an Eastbourne wedding attended by the new Labour aristocracy. But her rise has not been without controversy. In September 2007, she and her husband were accused of breaking the spirit of House of Commons rules by 'flipping' their second home. They were ultimately cleared of any wrongdoing by Parliament's sleaze watchdog. Who are the other runners and riders to take over Ed Miliband as Labour leader? It is two decades since Labour last picked a leader who went on to become Prime Minister, when Tony Blair took charge in 1994 before taking the party to three historic election victories.

Now the party is looking for someone who has the ideas and personal appeal to reverse the latest slump – appealing to voters which have abandoned the party for the Tories, SNP or Ukip. Up to seven candidates could eventually vie to become Labour leader – including candidates from the party's Brownite old guard and modernising MPs who were not elected until 2010. Liz Kendall Shadow health secretary Liz Kendall was first out of the blocks in the leadership race on Sunday Shadow health secretary Liz Kendall was first out of the blocks in the leadership race on Sunday - announcing her bid with a heavily-Blairite pitch to appeal to middle class voters. The Leicester West MP has impressed since being elected to Parliament in 2010 - doubling her majority last week despite the party's disastrous performance across the country. Ms Kendall grew up in comfortable middle-class Hertfordshire, attending Watford Grammar School for Girls before heading to Cambridge University. Since taking office, Ms Kendall has become a member of the so-called 'breakfast club' quartet of Labour frontbenchers along with Chuka Umunna, Emma Reynolds, and Tristram Hunt. Ms Kendall called for the party to draw a line under Ed Miliband's leadership in a Sunday interview on the BBC.

She said: 'I think we didn't get people's trust on the economy... we didn't set out a positive enough alternative for the future.' Ms Kendall is also an avowed rap music man and was dating the comedian Greg Davies, star of the sitcom The Inbetweeners. He said: 'I mostly listen to rap. I do listen to some Eminem, I listen to Dr Dre – my favourite – and loads of Jay-Z, but from the good old days of The Black Album. I listen to a bit of Public Enemy. It's brilliant – particularly if I'm about to speak in the Chamber.' Andy Burnham Andy Burnham ran to become Labour leader in 2010 but was beaten into fourth place after running a campaign casting himself as the northern candidate Another frontunner from the senior ranks of the shadow cabinet is the former health secretary Andy Burnham, who is a firm favourite with party members and union chiefs. Mr Burnham ran to become Labour leader in 2010 but was beaten into fourth place after running a campaign casting himself as the northern candidate. The Everton-supporting MP for Leigh is once again likely to call for a leader who can represent parts of the country abandoned by London's 'metropolitan elite'.

He is known to be more Eurosceptic than most of this shadow cabinet colleagues and hard on law and order. But his election would be seen as a further jump to the left, after wining union support by coming out strongly against Blairite reforms to public services especially in the NHS. Tristram Hunt Shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt remains potential candidate and has admitted that he is considering standing Shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt has seen his star wane in Westminster but remains potential candidate and has admitted that he is considering standing. In a move which would give outsiders like himself a better chance of winning, Mr Hunt has urged the party to embark on a longer period of reflection instead of rushing to appoint a new leader. In a series of interviews over the weekend, Mr Hunt lambasted Ed Miliband's failed campaign which he said had left the party in a 'really deep hole'. He said he wanted to 'one of those voices' helping to get the party back on its feet. He said Labour needed to be 'on the side of those families who want to shop at John Lewis and go on holiday and build their extension' rather than just the poor.

Mr Hunt is one of the most unlikely Labour politicians – and may be considered 'too posh' to be leader. The son of Baron Hunt of Chesterton, he went to a state primary school in Cambridge before joining the fee-paying University College School in Hampstead, north London. From there he went on to study history at Trinity College, Cambridge and the University of Chicago. At Cambridge he joined Footlights around the same time as comedians David Mitchell and Robert Webb. After working on New Labour's 1997 election campaign, he became a special adviser in the Labour government. After spells at think tanks and universities, his career as a historian took off, presenting series for the BBC and writing countless books. After struggling to get selected to stand as a Labour MP, he was eventually parachuted in to Stoke-on-Trent Central, with a little help from his friend Lord Mandelson. Elected in 2010, he joined Ed Miliband's frontbench in 2013, soon becoming shadow education secretary.

Chuka Umunna Chuka Umunna became the second MP to join the race to succeed Ed Miliband as Labour Party leader Smooth and urbane, Chuka Umunna is the articulate politician who hopes to make the Labour Party electable again after the humiliations suffered under Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband. But many party workers worry that this 36-year-old, 6ft-tall, well-dressed former lawyer may be just a little too smooth. And they wonder whether he will be able to connect with ordinary people. The grandson of a British prosecutor at the Nuremberg war trials, Chuka was educated at a private boys' school, and was a chorister at Southwark Cathedral. His voice can be heard singing the theme tune to the Rowan Atkinson comedy Mr Bean. Mr Umunna thinks nothing of spending £1,200 on bespoke suits from Alexandra Wood, an exclusive Savile Row tailor. He was forced to apologise two years ago after it was revealed that he had once commented on a website that London's nightclubs were 'full of trash and C-list wannabes'.

And he lives in a £1million home reportedly funded from a family trust located in the tax haven of Jersey – despite his party's stance against tax avoidance. MPs question whether he has any understanding of life outside London, the city he has lived in all his life and where his constituency is. Could he attract votes in Scotland and the north of England? One of the major questions that could dog his campaign is: If the Labour Party has gone so wrong, why did he vote for the disastrous Ed Miliband as leader in 2010, saying the party needed a change from the electorally-successful policies of New Labour. Last night Simon Danczuk, the outspoken Labour MP for Rochdale, questioned Mr Umunna's suitability for the role. 'Is he the sort of person who could win seats in Bolton West, in Bury North, in Glasgow?' he said on LBC Radio. 'Labour does need to move away from this metropolitan comfort zone. The party has been too London-centric.' Two years ago Mr Umunna attracted ridicule when it emerged his Wikipedia entry had been altered to refer to him as 'the UK's Barack Obama'. The change had come from a computer registered at his old law firm.

Born in 1978, Mr Umunna grew up in Streatham, South London – exactly the same area he has represented in the Commons for the past five years. His father Bennett arrived in Britain from Nigeria in the 1960s with virtually nothing. He began a successful import-export business and later married solicitor Patricia Milmo, the daughter of Sir Helenus Milmo, the Nuremberg prosecutor. In 1992, Bennett died in a mysterious crash soon after standing to be governor of a Nigerian state on an anti-bribery platform. After his comfortable childhood, Mr Umunna studied law in Manchester, where he even tried his hands as a club DJ. He has spent summers at his mother's £1million Ibiza villa, which is called the White House. After several years as a corporate employment lawyer at Herbert Smith in the City of London, he saw his chance and stood as an MP when the Streatham seat came up. Before entering parliament in 2010 he espoused the Left-wing ideals of the Compass pressure group. After voting for Ed Miliband he became the leader's aide and then business spokesman.

But now he is positioning himself on the right of the party where his supporters hope he can carry Tony Blair's mantle. Yvette Cooper: The woman fighting for your rights | Empowering Women Be Inspired | Inspiring Interviews |Yvette Cooper: The woman fighting for your rights Yvette Cooper: The woman fighting for your rights Is this the face of our next Prime Minister? Yvette Cooper is too savvy to say so herself. Instead, she talks to India Knight about home chaos, political passions... and dancing. Life Women we love Whoever books the contestants for Strictly Come Dancing should give Yvette Cooper a call: she’s done ballet, she can tap dance and she can do a syncopated time-step, whatever that may be. She says she’d ‘love’ to go on the show – ‘that would be wonderful’ – but then adds that her time-step is ‘a bit cloggy’ and that ‘I’m sure I’d be hopeless’. Which is funny because a) I don’t get the feeling that Yvette Cooper is hopeless at anything, and b) the self-deprecation is telling of a particular kind of high-achieving woman.

It’s ‘Yeah, I can do that’ followed by ‘but I’d hate anyone to think I was showing off or bragging, so I’ll just dampen it down a bit’. Despite her light-hearted humility, Cooper has done a lot to shout about. During her 16-year political career, she has fought for affordable homes for first-time buyers as minister for housing, highlighted the effects of the recession on women in her role as chief secretary to the treasury (the first woman in history to hold this position) and, last year, celebrated the passing of the same-sex marriage bill as shadow minister for women and equalities. Cooper and husband Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, are the first married couple ever to sit in the shadow Cabinet together. Yet she famously took a back seat in 2010, leaving him to run for the leadership candidacy, explaining that her kids were too young and it wasn’t the right time for her. Of course there are many who still think she should lead the Labour party but, being possessed of tact and a brain, the shadow home secretary now says she’d just like to be home secretary under Ed Miliband.

As well as the time-step, the 44-year-old can play the piano to Grade 5. Her husband famously missed his Grade 3 piano exam last winter in order to respond to George Osborne’s Autumn Statement. Anything he can do… Does she help him? ‘I just say I learned to Grade 5. I don’t actually put fingers to the keyboard to demonstrate how much I’ve forgotten,’ she laughs. As a child, Cooper also had violin lessons (‘It was just really awful’), as well as clarinet and drum lessons. ‘I’m just no good at any of them.’ Hmm. She paints an interesting picture of her childhood and teens, actually – the tap lessons, the ballet, the music. And she also liked drama and acted in school plays: all the arty, creative stuff you don’t necessarily associate with an embryonic politician. No terrible teen angst that she can recall. Her first act of political activism was at school, aged 15, over the decision to take away a boy’s prefect badge because he was wearing white socks, ‘which I decided was totally unfair. I remember standing on a table to the crowd of prefects. We sent the head girl and head boy to the headmaster with our demands’.

Cooper’s father was a trade union official, ‘so I went with him on the Peoples March for Jobs in 1983. I’ve still got the little green badge’. Later, at Oxford, where she gained a first-class degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics, she kept up with the drama – ‘I did a lot of student theatre’ – but got more involved with student politics: ‘We were doing anti-apartheid campaigning. We were doing this impromptu demo when Geoffrey Howe came to speak at a dinner at the college and we were rushing to get these posters done in time’. But what I really want to know about is her home life, because interviewing fantastically on-message politicians is a thankless task. It’s not that it’s uninteresting, and Cooper is both voluble and indignant about important issues. On the current government she says, ‘We got the House of Commons library to do some detailed analysis, and of the £14 billion that the Government has raised in cuts and pay and pensions changes, £11 billion has come from women.

So you have three-quarters of the money from women because the biggest cuts are in things like tax credits or child benefits, which are predominately paid to women, whereas things like the top-rate tax cut actually benefit more men. So I don’t think it is any surprise that David Cameron has a women problem.’ It’s just that domesticity is the only place you get any sense of what someone is actually like. For instance, do her and Ed get bored of each other? Surely the home/work juxtaposition is potentially claustrophobic? ‘I think,’ she says, ‘that it’s probably very similar to teachers who are married to each other, or police officers who are married to each other but might be in different divisions within the force. There are occasionally meetings in common but most of the time not.’ Cooper is equally matter-of-fact about the couple’s three children, aged 14, 12 and nine, saying she doesn’t divulge details of their lives because ‘they didn’t choose our jobs. They have their own lives to lead and they should have a normal childhood just like everybody else’s’. Does she worry about their online lives, though, I ask?

‘I think the problem is that every generation worries about new things that come up and affect their children. It’s very, very different from what we saw when we were growing up. ‘You get reports like the children’s commissioner’s report about the extent of violence in teenage relationships, which I think is worrying, so there is an issue about what teenagers are exposed to. But you have to have two responses to that. Family filters and so on can be sensible… The second response, though, is “let’s be realistic”. I have to ask my kids how to use the parental controls. They are far more techno savvy than I am. So the reality is they have to be resilient. You have to teach them resilience, values and respect, and I think that means compulsory sex and relationship education in school and zero tolerance of violence in relationships. I think it’s madness that Michael Gove is closing his mind to all of that.’ Of online porn, she says: ‘It’s people’s choice. The interesting thing, talking to teenagers, is how much of this is still seen as being about girls, when it should be about boys and girls.

For example, a lot of the issues around weight and body image are about what girls are seeing in magazines, but actually if you talk to teenage girls they’ll say, “Well, this is what the boys say, what the boys think, this is how teenage boys think girls should look.” So you should be having the discussion with teenage boys and girls. ‘What is worrying to parents is when it gets into extremes, when you start to get into serious eating disorders or you have violence taking place in relationships. They are the things you should do something about. But also be honest about the fact that there is no simple answer. I think the confidence of teenage girls is greater than it was 10 or 20 years ago in terms of expectations, in that they know they can do all kinds of jobs. It’s just that the expectation to look a particular way is greater now.’ Talking of confidence, Cooper says she didn’t expect to win a Labour seat, aged 28. ‘I thought I’d have a go at getting selected, just to see whether I was any good at it. So it was a bit of a shock to actually be selected before the 1997 election.’ Was it weird?

‘It’s such a strange job in many ways. You’re switching between debates in Parliament, debates on television, but also dealing with these very local issues – people that you are trying to help who are suddenly about to be made homeless, or have problems with a violent partner. You have such a mix of the local and the national, and working out how to do that job is quite difficult when you first start.’ Cooper gets up at 7.30am. ‘There’s always that sort of morning chaos. I think the most stressful time in any parent’s day is that period between 8.20am and 8.40am. It’s just… shouting. You haven’t got them ready, you haven’t got yourself ready and then suddenly there’s a discussion about PE kit, or swimming. Who knew it was swimming today? And Ed has taken to piano practising during that period. It’s infuriating. So the shouting now includes shouting at the kids, shouting at myself and shouting at Ed because he is playing the piano and why is he not helping to find the swimming kit?’ They take it in turns to do the school run and then it’s off to Westminster, sometimes by car, sometimes by Tube or bus.

‘There might be a parliamentary statement you have to deal with, things that come up in the news, or you might have visits around the country…’ This makes for a very long day, obviously, though ‘parliamentary hours are better than they used to be. Now there is late night Monday and Tuesday [voting is at 10pm], but Wednesdays and Thursdays are easier [Fridays and weekends are spent in the constituency, in Yorkshire]. I try to get back as early as possible and usually I can do it. I always used to try to get back for story reading but they’re getting older now. I still try to get back in time to talk to them about homework and so on’. Cooper admits that her mum is ‘the fourth emergency service’ when unpredictable hours get the better of her or her husband; her sister is also to hand if the children need to be in London and their parents are in Yorkshire. She does the chatting while Ed does the cooking – and occasionally plays more piano, she notes quite dryly. He is, she says, such a good cook (having been taught by his mother) that if he’s out ‘I just do ready meals or beans on toast’.

After that, there isn’t much time for anything else: she likes Doctor Who, but aside from that ‘we’re a bit slow – we’ve only just started watching The Wire’. Her husband has revealed that he sometimes sobs at Antiques Roadshow. Do they sit, crying companionably together? ‘I do cry, but not as much as he does, no.’ She tries to read, but fails except for in the summer holidays. ‘I started The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach a month ago,’ she says. A strange thing has happened recently in her permanently hectic life. ‘Saturday afternoons,’ she says. ‘Now the children are older, there is this whole new phenomenon of Saturday afternoons. Everybody else is doing something, and there is nobody I am meant to be looking after or taking to the park. And I think, “What did I do with my Saturday afternoons 15 years ago?”’ What have you been doing with your newfound free time, I ask. ‘For the last two weeks I have been staring into space.’ A welcome breather from Cooper’s crazily busy life, or an indication that, now her children are older, she’s ready to aim even higher?

Both, with any luck.

Question: Which famous politician is married to Yvette Cooper and has three children, two boys and a girl?
Answer: ED BALLS