'Bring back Ed Balls' - George Osborne in shock call for return of former foe

Chancellor mocks Labour's new shadow chancellor in response to criticism for missing debate on productivity

George Osborne agreed to a live TV debate proposed by Ed Balls (BBC)

A week is a long time in politics and a month is an eternity, as George Osborne's latest comments demonstrate.

The Chancellor, in one of the Tory government's biggest U-turns, has said he wants to see the return of his former foe Ed Balls - (Ed Miliband's shadow chancellor who lost his seat at the election, in case you'd forgotten who he was).

"I never thought I'd say 'bring back Ed Balls'," Mr Osborne declared when his opposite number Chris Leslie criticised him for not responding to the Labour party's debate on productivity tomorrow.

Mr Osborne, generating raucous laughter from his backbenches, added: "I think the Labour party needs to look at the productivity of its own front bench after those two dismal questions."

The tit-for-tat exchanges between the Tory Chancellor and Mr Balls was a regular highlight of the last parliament as the two clashed over the coalition's and the previous Labour government's records on the economy.

It wasn't just Mr Osborne who was wound up by Mr Balls across the despatch box - David Cameron was regularly irritated at the former shadow chancellor's hand gestures as he sat across from him at Prime Minister's Questions - on one occasion Mr Cameron branded Mr Balls a "muttering idiot".

And then there was the time when Mr Cameron mocked Mr Balls' frequent use of hand gestures:

George Osborne is missing Labour's Opposition day debate on productivity tomorrow because he is standing in for Mr Cameron at Prime Minister's Questions tomorrow.

Mr Cameron is visiting Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi in Milan and Belgium Prime Minister Charles Michel in Brussels as part of his bid to renegotiate Britain's membership of the European Union.

@matt_dathan