Balls' masterclass in gesture politics

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Clearly that old saying about sticks and stones failed to take into account a middle-aged man performing what has become known as the "flatlining gesture."

This side-to-side glide of the hand has become the signature move of Ed Balls, shadow chancellor, and tormentor of the prime minister's temper.

Time and again at this afternoon's PMQs, Balls leant forward and delivered the 'flatliner.' It doesn't really matter that economic growth has risen.

The move is now so perfectly honed that it seems too good to waste, and it acted as the perfect foil for Ed Miliband's quietly impressive sextet of questions on the economy.

Each question tweaked the prime ministerial patience. "Isn’t it noticeable that when things wrong it’s never anything to do with him," accused the Labour leader, accusing the PM of being a master of the "fanfare announcement then radio silence." The barbs stung, the prime minister's anger rose, and all the time Ed Balls did that gesture.

It passes silently across David Cameron's eye-line as he tries to answer a question and slips into his peripheral vision when he's scribbling at his notes, gnawing away at his patience and pulling at his concentration. And doesn't Balls knows it.

With every prime ministerial answer on the economy the shadow chancellor's eyes widen, his neck lurches forward, and his right hand begins to twitch. Then, without fail, he flatlines in the prime minister's direction, a gesture accompanied by a manic 'who-can-blink-first' stare.

Today, it was the prime minister.

"The shadow chancellor is wrong, even when he's sitting down," Cameron shouted, finally cracking after nearly 25 minutes of Balls' mime artistry. "He talks even more rubbish when he stands up."

Balls was delighted with the attention, taking the chance to reveal that he is the master of this particular niche form of mental torture.

For out comes the "calm down" gesture, in which the outstretched hand moves up and down rather than from side to side. This one is even more irritating for the prime minister, as it is, of course, a pastiche of his own advice to a Labour's Angela Eagle to "calm down, dear."

Incidentally, if he was ever a sexist he certainly isn't any more – can’t you see that female MPs (today it was Margot James and Angie Bray) always choose to sit behind him at PMQs?

Actually, Balls inevitably had something to say about that too.When Cameron declared that he wanted to see "more women on Britain's boardrooms", Balls led the Labour front bench in howls of delight at the sight of the ten be-suited men flanking the prime minister's side.

And none had a gesture to out-gesture Balls. Instead it took Sir Peter Tapsell, a man whose verbosity requires no hand-waving, to deride the "increasingly maniacal gesticulotions" from Balls.

Sir Peter's put down seemed to free Cameron from the internal turmoil which the shadow chancellor had inflicted upon him.

"You can carry on doing your rather questionable salutes," the prime minister shouted, a comeback which simply encouraged Balls to do just that.

But now identified, will Balls' wonderfully irritating addition to the performing arts lose its effectiveness? Or has the flatlining manoeuvre merely gained strength by the prime minister's public confirmation that it drives him to distraction. And who can remember any of Ed Miliband's six questions on the economy?

So often frowned upon, gesture politics has rarely proved so effective.

Sam Macrory is political editor of The House Magazine.

PS: As Paul Waugh points out at PoliticsHome, Angela Eagle may well have hit upon a gesture of her own to rile the prime minister..