Peter Rhodes: Ed for the exit?

A BBC reporter covering the Autumn Statement assured us that the Government's plan to pay off the deficit by 2020 is now on the shelf and out of the window.

MYSTERIES of our time. A full refurbishment of Buckingham Palace will cost £370 million. A full refurbishment of the Palace of Westminster will cost more than 10 times as much, at £4,000 million. Now, it may be that the Westminster job really is 10 times bigger than the one at Buck House. Or could it be that politicians spend public money like water while Her Majesty is known to watch every penny? It must be easier for contractors to extract money from MPs and Lords than from a lady who is so thrifty that she allegedly saves the string from her Christmas parcels.

COMMON sense tells us this must be the weekend when the public vote Ed Balls off Strictly Come Dancing. And yet common sense also told us that Labour would win the 1992 General Election, the Scots would vote for independence, David Cameron could not win the 2015 election, Britain would vote to stay in the EU and the Yanks would elect President Hillary. People do not like being taken for granted or being told how to vote, and they detest premature celebration. So Balls may last a little longer yet.

AND why shouldn't the politician go on? Of all the contestants, he is closest to the original idea of the show which was to take people from different walks of life, teach them to dance and see how good they could become. Instead, genuine clod-hoppers like Balls find themselves pitched against established showbiz stars who are used to performing song and dance routines, not to mention Olympic gymnast Claudia Fragapane who enlivens her dances with effortless one-handed cartwheels, for goodness' sake. By voting for Balls to stay, viewers are once again defying the experts, refusing to toe the line and making a sloping playing field just a bit more level.

IT would be fascinating to know how many people who voted for Ed Balls also voted for Brexit.

HEINZ produced a TV advert showing how to play a tune using empty baked-bean tins. And very catchy it is, too. But after receiving just nine complaints about the alleged danger of kids cutting themselves on sharp edges, the Advertising Standards Authority has banned it. However, since the ban was announced, the ad, and variations of it, have gone viral. By yesterday morning, just three YouTube videos had attracted between them more than two million viewers. So nine complainers and the ASA ban have given Heinz more publicity than it could have dreamed of. In this internet age, banz meanz viewerz.

I SUGGESTED a couple of days ago that once shaking hands with the Duke of Edinburgh may have given me his immunity to flu. A reader says I may be confusing this with the "royal touch," the ancient belief that if the monarch laid hands on you, it would cure scrofula. Who knows? But as far as I know I am also entirely free of scrofula.