Labour's shadow chancellor Ed Balls admits running red light

Balls was caught by a traffic camera as he headed home after a late night sitting in Parliament

Labour's Ed Balls has admitted to being caught running a red light (Getty Images)

Ed Balls’s famous impatience cost him a hefty fine when he jumped a red light after a late sitting in the Commons.

The shadow chancellor’s spokesman confirmed this morning that he was caught by a traffic camera along the Embankment when he “passed through the light just after it turned red” six months ago.

According to The Sun, Mr Balls was fined £350 and got three points on his licence after pleading guilty at City Magistrates’ Court.

It is the second time in recent months that Mr Balls’s determination to get where he wants to go quickly has caused him to break the rules of the road.

In April, he admitted that he was “bang to rights” when he was caught driving at 56 mph on a stretch of motorway where there was a temporary 50 mph limit in his Morley and Outwood constituency, in West Yorkshire. He joked then that he had been going “too far, too fast” – a phrase he has used repeatedly to attack the speed at which George Osborne has been trying to tackle the deficit. He added that he was “caught out by the never-ending roadworks on the M62."

He chose to pay a £60 fine and go through a speed awareness course rather than take the penalty points.

“I currently have no points on my licence and would like to keep it that way,” he wrote on his blog.