Ed miliband

Wednesday

The Spectator

Budget 2015: Full text of Ed Miliband’s response

Mr Deputy Speaker, never has the gap between the Chancellor’s rhetoric and the reality of people’s lives been greater than it was today. This is a Budget people won’t believe from a government that’s not on their side. Because of their record. Because of their instincts. Because of their plans for the future. And because of a Budget, most extraordinarily, that had no mention of investment in our National Health Service and our vital public services. It is a budget people won’t believe from a government they don’t trust and this chancellor has failed the working families of Britain. For the first time since the 1920s people are earning less at the end of a government than they were at the beginning. People are £1,600 a year worse off.

Isabel Hardman

PMQs: Was Ken Clarke snoozing? If so, he missed nothing

The PMQs before the Budget is always pretty pointless, and David Cameron turned up clearly determined to trivialise his exchanges with Ed Miliband as much as possible. He came armed with a plethora of jokes about second kitchens, chuckling about throwing two kitchen sinks at problems, that if the Leader of the Opposition couldn't stand the heat, he should get out of the kitchen, and that the Shadow Chancellor wouldn't be able to tell which kitchen he could find his leader in. It was partly a device to blunt the attacks that Ed Miliband made, which predictably were on the NHS, on his promise not to reorganise the health service, on cancer treatment rates and on hospital ward closures.

Isabel Hardman

Budget 2015: The challenges for Labour

Ed Miliband will respond to the Budget today (the Shadow Chancellor responds to the Autumn Statement, and has a Budget speech the day after the main event). In the past couple of years the Labour response hasn’t been fantastic, partly because the Tories have got a very well-organised (and at times just rather brutish and silly) heckling squad ready to create a wall of noise, and partly because it is difficult to respond to a Budget that contains good figures. But Labour thinks the Autumn Statement gave it the opportunity to attack the Tories on something other than the cost-of-living. The party can now say that George Osborne is planning ‘extreme’ cuts that will take Britain back to the 1930s and that this will damage the NHS, which voters hold dear.

Sebastian Payne

Are the Conservatives really running the most ‘positive possible campaign’?

While the nation is on tenterhooks for the 2015 Budget, the Tories have filled the news gap this morning with a new attack video. As you can watch above, Conservative HQ has dug up 18 year old TV footage from the Treasury, featuring Messrs Miliband, Balls and Brown promising to spend money wisely and keep unemployment down. As we now know, this didn't quite go to plan so the Tories are keen to remind voters: ‘don’t let them do it again.’ This ad has been viewed just under 10,000 times, which is pretty good for a political video. The tone is one of an attack ad, crafted to scare voters away from Labour and the two Eds. The timing is odd, coming days after David Cameron denied the Tories were 'going negative'.

Steerpike

Andy Burnham burnishes his foreign policy credentials

If Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham's future leadership aspirations were ever in doubt, then take a look at his reaction to the news of Benjamin Netanyahu's re-election as Prime Minister of Israel last night: https://twitter.com/andyburnhammp/status/578116833653305344 Burnishing his foreign policy expertise: tick. Cat-nipping the Labour left: tick. About as subtle as Burnham's recent attempts in The Spectator to rebrand himself as 'mainstream Labour'. The general election campaign has barely begun, and already potential Miliband successors are getting their ducks in a row.

Tuesday

Steerpike

Coffee Shots: David Cameron shows off his well-stocked kitchen

Sarah Vine criticised Ed Miliband in the Daily Mail after the Labour leader posed with his wife Justine in a bare kitchen for a BBC interview. Although the 'forlorn little kitchen' turned out to just be his 'kitchenette' rather than his main kitchen, Miliband has gone on to insist that it is one he uses. It's a different story, however, for his rival David Cameron who has taken the opportunity to show off his own shiny kitchen in a video for the Sun's new election website. The short film, which documents a day in the life of the Prime Minister, shows Cameron chillaxing in the well-stocked kitchen which is crammed with food, equipment and recipe books.

Monday

Sebastian Payne

Tories will continue Labour/SNP attacks, despite Miliband’s comments

Labour has decreed today it won’t go into a formal coalition with the SNP, but this won’t stop the Tories from attacking Ed Miliband over the possibility. Despite Miliband's proclamation that 'Labour will not go into coalition government with the SNP' and 'there will be no SNP ministers in any government I lead', a Tory source says 'we'll continue to campaign on this'. So expect more stunts and adverts highlighting the dangers of any union between Labour and the SNP.

James Forsyth

Ed Miliband rules out a formal coalition with the SNP — but a deal could still be on the cards

Ed Miliband has today ruled out a formal coalition between Labour and the SNP. Labour hope that this will draw the sting from Tory claims that if you vote Labour, you’ll get SNP and put pressure on Cameron to rule out any deal with Ukip. But, as Nicola Sturgeon has been quick to point out, the SNP weren’t keen on a formal coalition. Rather, what has been talked about is something more akin to a confidence and supply deal with the SNP agreeing to vote for Miliband’s Queen Speech and Budget in return for specific concessions.  This is something that Miliband, for the obvious reason that he might need it in the event of a hung parliament, doesn’t want to rule out. So, expect the Tory attacks to keep on coming.

Friday

Steerpike

Ed Miliband defends his two kitchens

Yesterday Mr S reported that Ed Miliband posed in his second kitchen for a BBC interview with his wife Justine, rather than his larger main kitchen. Now the Labour leader has come out in defence of his two kitchens, claiming that the smaller 'kitchenette' is his main kitchen. Speaking to the Birmingham Mail, Miliband says that he does have two kitchens but denies that he posed in the smaller one to give the impression that he was a man of the people. 'I think Justine would probably say she wishes I’d spend more time in the kitchen. The house we bought had a kitchen downstairs when we bought it. And it is not the one we use. We use the small one upstairs.

Steerpike

Wallace and Gromit creator not happy about Ed Miliband cartoons

Since the Times cartoonist Peter Brookes first drew Ed Miliband in the image of Wallace from Nick Park's cartoon Wallace and Gromit, the Labour leader has been unable to escape comparisons to the goofy-faced character. Now, the Evening Standard reports that Park is growing tired of its negative use in the lead up to the election. 'As a huge Labour supporter Nick hates the way they always depict Miliband disparagingly,' a source close to Park is quoted as telling the paper. 'The humour used is more often than not crude, and the main concern for Nick is the damage it is doing to Wallace and Gromit’s image as good, clean family oriented animated characters.

Isabel Hardman

Labour edges towards firmer line on SNP coalition

If mainstream politicians are a bit confused and downbeat at the moment, Scottish Labour MPs are the most miserable of the lot, facing a savaging in constituencies they never thought would slip out of their party’s hands. But last night Ed Miliband gave them reason to be a bit less miserable, just for a little while anyway. On Free Speech, the Labour leader came much closer to ruling out a Labour-SNP coalition than he has before, saying ‘I am saying it’s nonsense. I absolutely am saying it’s nonsense. It’ not gonna… you know… you just said it’. He also pointed out that the SNP had ruled out a coalition with Labour. Of course, the real chances of a coalition were pretty low, given it would seriously damage both parties involved.

Thursday

James Forsyth

Ed speaks some human

When Ed Miliband ran for the Labour leadership in 2010, his supporters boasted that he spoke human. Tonight, in a question time session with a group of young people broadcast on BBC3, Miliband showed flashes of his ability to connect with an audience. But, overall, it was a patchy performance. Miliband was very good on some subjects and dealt neatly with some left-field questions. However, he still doesn’t have the right answer to the question of whether he would do a deal with the SNP after the election in the event of a hung parliament. He dismissed the ideas as ‘a piece of nonsense from the Tories’. But, in contrast to a grand coalition with the Tories, he didn’t actually rule it out. Predictably, Miliband got asked about drugs.

Steerpike

Times columnist comes to the defence of ‘Two Kitchens’ Miliband

Mr Steerpike was interested to see Jenni Russell springing to Ed Miliband’s defence after Sarah Vine took a pop at his kitchen in the Daily Mail. Mrs Gove described his kitchen as ‘drab’ and said it made her want to ‘bring him over some fresh brownies’. Thankfully, as Times columnist Russell points out, this is not his main kitchen. It is in fact his ‘ functional kitchenette’: Ed Miliband's kitchen is lovely. Daily Mail pix: the functional kitchenette by sitting room for tea and quick snacks. — Jenni Russell (@jennirsl) March 12, 2015 Mr S imagines Russell is a fairly reliable source when it comes to the living arrangements of the Miliband family, given that the Labour leader is godfather to her child.

Steerpike

Miliband could teach Rusbridger a thing or two about meeting men on Hampstead Heath

This morning Alan Rusbridger received a police caution for ‘illegal use of a tripod’ on Hampstead Heath. The Guardian editor has since written a blog detailing his brush with the law. The London police have been trying to nick an editor for years. Today they got one - me http://t.co/IatiJR0ELR — alan rusbridger (@arusbridger) March 12, 2015 The incident began when a man took offence at photos Rusbridger was taking with David Levene. 'He ran down the hill shouting that I had no right to take pictures and I’d better effing delete them. As he got nearer he became a rather large and shouty speck, sweat beading on his bald head as he bellowed in my face. We were effing out of order.

Isabel Hardman

Andy Burnham interview: ‘I wanted a different approach, because I’m mainstream Labour’

Time was when Andy Burnham passed for a middle-of-the-road Labourite: he was deemed insufficiently dramatic and impressive to secure much support when he stood for leader five years ago. But these days, his colleagues — and the bookmakers — consider the shadow health secretary the frontrunner in any new contest. At an otherwise funereal Labour conference last year, his speech received standing ovations. In three months’ time, Burnham will either be health secretary or a serious contender for Labour leader. He has already survived calls from within his party to remove him from the health brief, though he claims Miliband has never raised the prospect.

Wednesday

Lloyd Evans

PMQs sketch: Miliband could have lost the election today

Was this the day Ed Miliband lost the election? Only two PMQs remain before polling day and the Labour leader used all six questions to ask David Cameron one thing: when might he ask him more questions? Nothing on policy. Nothing on convictions. Just questions about questions. He meant questions outside the House, of course. On telly. That’s the difference, according to Labour. A televised head-to-head debate is nothing like parliament. Except that PMQs is a televised head-to-head debate. To quiz the PM about quizzing the PM is hardly the tactic of a confident popular leader about to sweep to power. But Miliband had made a calculation. Previously, Cameron had offered unequivocally to take on the Labour leader at any time. Now he’s changed his mind.

James Forsyth

Both leaders had their lines to push at PMQs

Rather predictably, Ed Miliband went on the TV debates again today at PMQs. Labour believe that Cameron’s refusal to do a head to head debate, despite having previously indicated he would, can be turned into an issue of character. Miliband today labelled Cameron a bully who runs away when someone stands up to him. But Cameron had his own line to push, that Miliband wanted to crawl into Downing Street on the SNP’s coattails. Every jibe from Miliband was met with this response. It was not an edifying spectacle and the glee with which the SNP watched proceedings did make one wonder where this tactic could lead.

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

Justine Miliband rushes to her husband’s defence

Justine Miliband has given an interview to the BBC, a sort of ‘back my husband, my hero’ contribution to the Labour election campaign. She starts by talking about the pressures on the family and how ‘being a working mother’, she hasn’t really had a chance to think about what it would be like for the family with Ed in Downing Street.

Sunday

Fraser Nelson

With proper support, state-educated kids beat the privately-educated. Here’s the proof

The Sunday Times today reports proof of what many have long suspected: that if you give bright disadvantaged kids the same support that pupils get at private schools and they beat their privately-educated rivals at top universities. Get three decent A-levels at a private school and you've a 65 per cent chance of going to a Russell Group elite university. But state school kids helped by the Social Mobility Foundation have a 70 per cent change, according to a report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (pdf). We at The Spectator are great supporters of the Social Mobility Foundation (I recent joined its advisory board). It identifies some of the brightest and most determined young people in Britain; we have hired two SMF alumni so far.

Friday

James Forsyth

Number 10 won’t budge on their TV debate offer

The broadcasters have rejected David Cameron’s offer of one seven-way debate before the start of the short campaign. Instead, they are sticking to their plan for two seven-way debates and one head to head between Cameron and Miliband in the short campaign. This means that the debates, certainly in terms of Cameron’s participation, are pretty much dead. Number 10 and CCHQ were insistent that their offer on Wednesday night was final. The Tories’ reason for not wanting to debate is simple: Cameron polls ahead of Miliband on leadership by such a margin that he would have to win the debate by a knock out for it to be worth his while.