Jeremy Corbyn

Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (/kɔːrbɪn/; born 26 May 1949) is a British politician who is the Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Islington North since 1983 and was elected Labour Leader in 2015. Ideologically, he identifies as a democratic socialist.

Born in Chippenham in Wiltshire, Corbyn attended Adams' Grammar School and later North London Polytechnic without attaining a degree. Before entering politics he worked as a representative for various trade unions. His political career began when he was elected to Haringey Council in 1974 and later was secretary of the Islington Constituency Labour Party (CLP). He continued in both roles until he entered the House of Commons as an MP.

Corbyn has received awards for his work as an international human rights campaigner. As an MP he is known for his activism and rebelliousness, frequently voting against the Labour whip when the party was in government under New Labour leaders Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Corbyn advocates an anti-austerity platform of reversing austerity cuts to public sector and welfare funding made since 2010, proposing preventing tax evasion and avoidance by corporations and wealthy individuals, reducing corporate subsidies, and pursuing an invest-to-grow economic strategy as an alternative. He proposes renationalisation of public utilities and the railways, abolishing university tuition fees, and financing "People's Quantitative Easing" to fund infrastructure and renewable energy projects. A longstanding anti-war and anti-nuclear activist, Corbyn supports a foreign policy of military non-interventionism and a unilateral policy of nuclear disarmament. Corbyn is a member of the Socialist Campaign Group, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Amnesty International and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). He was the national chair of the Stop the War Coalition from June 2011 until September 2015.

Ed Balls

Edward Michael "Ed" Balls (born 25 February 1967) is a British Labour Party and Co-operative Party politician. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Normanton from 2005 to 2010 and for Morley and Outwood from 2010 to 2015.

Balls was Chief Economic Advisor to the Treasury (1997-2004), Economic Secretary to the Treasury (2006-7) and served as Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families in Gordon Brown's Government from 2007 to 2010. He was the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time of his electoral defeat, which was described by Larry Elliott of The Guardian as the Portillo moment of the election.

He is currently a Senior Fellow at Harvard University Kennedy School’s Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government, and a Visiting Professor to the Policy Institute at King’s College London. He was appointed chairman of Norwich City F.C. in December 2015.

Balls is married to former Shadow Home Secretary and Labour MP Yvette Cooper. In June 2007, they became the first married couple to serve together in HM Cabinet when Cooper became Chief Secretary to the Treasury.