Ed miliband

The money is moving. Boris Johnson is now the bookies’ favourite to become the next leader of the Conservative Party. According to Ladbrokes he’s at 9/4, with Theresa May and George Osborne trailing him at 4/1 and 5/1, respectively. Plainly, Boris reckons that David Cameron is on-course to lose the next election, or else he wouldn't have made today’s annoucemnent. The turf accountants agree with him. They have Ed Miliband at 4/5 on to be the next Prime Minister, while BoJo stands at 5/1. Could it ever happen for BoJo, though? He’s 7/2 to make it to Number 10 ‘at any time’. Talking of bets, our own columnist Toby Young will be pleased.

So Ed Miliband is in trouble with some angry people over whether or not he took enough trouble over signing a remembrance wreath. Here is the offending wreath, on the right besides the Prime Minister's which bears a personal message. Messages on the wreaths laid by David Cameron and Ed Miliband. #WW1Centenary #c4news pic.twitter.com/gDNMxvc2tQ — Ciaran Jenkins (@C4Ciaran) August 4, 2014   Mark Ferguson at LabourList reports Labour sources saying they were just handed the wreath at the very last minute, and had no chance to add a personal message. Nick Clegg's wreath was similarly bland.

In this week’s Spectator, Melanie Phillips argued that supposedly anti-Israel protests over the Gaza war have convulsed Europe in the worst scenes of open Jew-hatred since the 1930s. The most appalling aspect is the silence in the face of all this of the political class. Here’s her suggestion for what Ed Miliband should say if he really cared about the rise of anti-semitism in Britain: ‘I am horrified, not just because of the resurgence of the madness from which my own family so grievously suffered in the Holocaust, but also because we on the left bear no small responsibility for this current obscenity. ‘Hamas has placed its rocket arsenals below hospitals, schools and mosques. It is using 12-year-old kids as human bombs against Israeli soldiers.

Trade unions have an important role in any decent society, but their stranglehold on the Labour Party is something we must fight against. I will never forget walking the streets of Poland back in 1981, when martial law was in force, and there were armed soldiers on almost every street corner. There it was a trade union, Solidarity, which brought authoritarian Communism to its knees. In the UK Margaret Thatcher recognised the importance of trade unions in society. Indeed one of her first roles in politics was as chairman of Dartford Conservative Trade Unionists. But the battle in British politics today is nothing to do with the work done by local union officials or workers struggling for political freedom.

For a politician to draw attention to his own deficiencies is a desperate attempt to curry favour with the electorate that has been tried before with dismal consequences. The most famous case is that of the former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith who, at his 2002 party conference, addressed the problem of his dullness as a political performer by saying that no one should ‘underestimate the determination of a quiet man’. One result was that Labour backbenchers would raise a finger to their lips and say ‘shush’ whenever this croaky-voiced man was speaking in the House of Commons.

Mr S can only commend Boris Johnson’s column in the Telegraph today. It eviscerates Ed Miliband for his hypocrisy over ‘image’ and ‘substance’. As Boris puts it: ‘Ed Miliband is absolutely right to say that politics should be about ideas, and he is right to say that these should be more important than image. But the awful fact – confirmed by this speech – is that, frankly, Miliband’s image and photo-opportunities are the best things he has in his political programme.’ The rest is here.

Ed Miliband has suggested that there be a public version of Prime Minister’s Questions. This courageous idea makes Mr S want Miliband to be prime minister. What would you ask him?

David Cameron and Tony Blair faced identical tasks earlier this week. Both wished to force a reluctant group of back-sliders to adopt a more robust and pragmatic position. Cameron wanted Europe to toughen up against Putin. Blair wanted Labour to toughen up against Cameron. Blair’s opportunity was the 20th anniversary of his enthronement as Labour’s leader. Oddly enough the chief beneficiary of that leadership – the Labour party itself – mysteriously forgot to give its messianic champion a chance to reflect on his methods. Instead, he offered his blueprint for further Labour victories to the think-tank, Progress. Blair likes to write in the early morning, in long-hand, seated at a window.

Washington, D.C. Ed Miliband met with Barack Obama yesterday, haven't you heard? The British press covered the visit with their usual gusto but the visit barely registered on the radar of American outlets. Out of the country’s most influential papers, neither the New York Times nor the Wall Street Journal wrote a single word about the potential next prime minister of the United Kingdom meeting the president. Miliband wasn't covered on any of the blogs or TV stations either. Only one US paper said anything about the visit.

I'm in the US right now, where the national conversation is - it's safe to say - not fixed on Ed Miliband's White House trip. We now have photographic proof of this event, but what's Barack Obama saying? A prize for the best suggestion. PS some unkind souls have suggested that this picture is the unfortunate type, taken by a malicious photographer. This is the official picture released by the Labour Party. I assume there were a few worse ones rejected.

On the hottest weekend of the year, few people would want to be stuck inside in Milton Keynes. But that is where the Labour hierarchy finds itself. For this weekend is the party’s national policy forum. Ed Miliband’s speech today is meant to try and show that while he has moved on from New Labour he is not old Labour. There will be much talk of how fiscal restraint will have to continue and how Miliband knows there can be no return to the free spending ways of the past. One aide sums the message up as, ‘We know there is no money to spend.’ But it’ll be fascinating to contrast Miliband’s speech today with the one that Tony Blair is giving on Monday to mark the 20th anniversary of his election as Labour leader.