Ed miliband

The editor of The Spectator isn’t the only person thinking about the prospect of Ed Miliband becoming the next Prime Minister. Eighty educationalists have signed a letter in the Daily Mail today warning about the danger of a future Labour government curtailing academy freedoms. They’re concerned about Ed Miliband’s pledge that Labour would reintroduce 'a proper local authority framework for all schools' – which sounds a lot like placing all taxpayer-funded schools back under local authority control. The letter-writers flag up two freedoms they are particularly concerned about: the freedom that academies and free schools have to set their own pay and conditions and the freedom they have over the curriculum. They’re right to be worried.

Ed Miliband will tomorrow pledge to abolish the non-domicile rule which allows very wealthy people to avoid paying tax on much of their income. The Labour leader will say: 'There are people who live here in Britain like you and me, work here in Britain like you and me, are permanently settled here in Britain, like you and me, but aren’t required to pay taxes like you and me because they take advantage of what has become an increasingly arcane 200-year-old loophole. There are now 116,000 non-doms, costing hundreds of millions of pounds to our country, it can no longer be justified, and it makes Britain an offshore tax haven for a few.' The party isn't sure how much it would raise from this change, but that's not the point in any case.

There’s something Ed Miliband isn’t telling us. He’d spend more, he says, and tackle the deficit. But how? Almost every tax rise he has announced is intended to raise cash for still more spending – so how would he cope with the fact that the government still needs to borrow 12p for every £1 that it spends? The obvious answer is: tax rises. But Labour has taken great care to avoid being drawn onto that topic. Or had taken great care, until Chris Leslie’s outing on the TV shows today. Leslie, deputy to Ed Balls, is one of the better guys in politics, straight-talking and pretty honest. And today, he told it straight: Labour would indeed need to raise taxes.

I have never been impressed by round robin letters, so if Ed Miliband had shrugged off the letter to the Daily Telegraph this week signed by 103 businessmen with the words: ‘if they have got something to say why can’t they speak for themselves rather than bleating like a flock of sheep’ he would have gained my respect. If Labour had to counter it with a round robin letter of its own it might at least have tried to find 100 businessmen of its own. Instead it rustled up a bizarre letter of its own. Complaining about zero hours contracts it declared:  'We come from all walks of life, this is what Britain looks like.' But when you read the signatories below you realise just how small Labour’s circle has become. All walks of North London, it ought to read.

The Sun's front page today has a picture of Ed Miliband saying: “Oops, I just lost my election”. That’s an exaggeration: I’d say the election is still 50/50, pretty much where it was last week. And realistically, that’s the best David Cameron could have hoped for. Miliband emerged best from the Paxman interviews, and had he triumphed last night he would have gathered momentum that could well have carried him over the line on 7 May. It was easier for Miliband to 'win - all he had to do to exceed expectations was turn up without the help of a life support machine. Last time, there was a sizeable gap between the caricature of Ed Miliband and the man at his best. But in his debate, the gap wasn't so big.