Former Labour minister Ed Balls, who is married to Labour's Yvette Cooper, fumed today as he was branded a 'Labour politician' by Green Party leader Zack Polanski.

The ex-Cabinet minister, now a presenter of ITV's Good Morning Britain, bristled at Mr Polanski's jibes during a fiery clash ahead of local elections on 7 May.

The angry exchanges came as Balls tried to quiz Mr Polanski about Green policies - including the party's wish for a 'world without borders' - prior to those contests. 

In a biting response, Mr Polanski questioned why Balls - who served in both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown's governments and whose wife is the Foreign Secretary -  was permitted to interview opposition party leaders.

Balls shot back at the Green leader and insisted he has 'not been a Labour politician for 10 years', since losing his House of Commons seat at the 2015 general election.

He also accused Mr Polanski of using an 'elaborate device of making accusations against me to avoid answering the questions'.

Later on, during the increasingly bad-tempered interview, Mr Polanski accused Balls of 'shock jock tactics', adding: 'You're really struggling here.' 

He also jibed that Balls, who was Labour's shadow chancellor between 2010 and 2015, was now 'someone pretending to be a journalist'.

There has previously been intense scrutiny of Balls' role as a presenter on ITV's flagship breakfast show, due to his political links.

The channel previously defended its decision to allow Balls to interview Ms Cooper, his wife of 28 years, on Good Morning Britain shortly after Labour won power in 2024.

But ITV said it would not allow the situation to occur again after more than 16,000 complaints were lodged with regulator Ofcom.

On Monday morning, with less than two weeks until Welsh Senedd elections and council contests across England, Mr Polanski was grilled about his party's stance on a number of issues - including border controls, drug legalisation, and fuel prices.

Balls told Mr Polanski he was 'the first person who's ever wanted to be prime minister in Britain who thought you could have a country who didn't police our borders'.

The Greens' policy principles state the party 'wants to see a world without borders', but with a 'fair and humane system of managed immigration' before then.

Mr Polanski denied an open borders plan was in the Greens' current manifesto, replying: 'Do you know what I'm enjoying? The fact that a Labour politician who is married to a senior Labour minister is allowed to ask questions of the leader of the Green Party. This is not our manifesto.'

Balls immediately picked up on Mr Polanski 'accusing me of being a Labour politician', as he challenged the Green leader to repeat the claim.

'It's not even an accusation. We are planning to replace the Labour Party and take the fight to Reform,' Mr Polanski said.

But Balls responded: 'Unfortunately, Mr Polanski, I lost my seat in 2015 and I've not been a Labour politician for 10 years.'

He added: 'You seem to be using a rather kind of elaborate device of making accusations against me to avoid answering the questions.'

Mr Polanski himself appeared to grow irritated when he was later quizzed about his past claim he could enlarge women's breasts via hypnosis.

'You want to just do shock jock tactics and, by the way, this is why people hate the media,' he told Balls and co-presenter Susanna Reid.

But Balls hit back: 'You accused me of being a Labour Cabinet minister 16 years, and then when I ask you about something you said 10 years ago you said it's illegitimate...'

Mr Polanski replied: 'Two of those things are not the same.

'Someone pretending to be a journalist who's interrogating the leader of a political party (while) having a very strong association with a Labour Government who are currently in power, is very different to asking me about a story when I wasn't a politician from 13 years ago that I've apologised for repeatedly.'