Ed miliband

Ed Miliband has been singing the praises of New Towns in tonight's Standard, saying a Labour government would use these developments to help solve London's housing crisis. He writes: 'A key plank will be creating new towns in sustainable locations where people want to live, just like earlier generations did in places such as Stevenage and Milton Keynes. Labour will kick-start the next generation of new towns and garden cities around the capital to ease the pressure on London.' Although he doesn't say it, it's a reasonably safe bet that the Labour leader is thinking of Ebbsfleet when he talks about a sustainable location where people want to live. That's where Lord Adonis, who is leading Labour's growth review, has set his sights for a new development.

Wellies off, gloves on. The party leaders greeted each other with forced displays of warmth and mutual esteem today. Outside, the gusts blew, the rivers rose and the heavens wept. Floods dominated everything. The PM has spent so much time with emergency committees that he’s adopted their can-do battlefield vocabulary. He talked of ‘Gold Commanders calling on military assets’ which is butch-speak for ‘squaddies with shovels being shouted at by Ruperts.’ Having sploshed around for ten days with flow-rate experts and sandbank architects he is also a world authority on flood management. The Thames, he declared, with Michael Fish-like gravity, ‘is expected to reach a second peak on Sunday or Monday.

There is one important line in Ed Miliband's Hugo Young lecture which shows the Labour leader is trying to come to terms with some of the difficult questions that he knows he must answer before 2015. Labour knows that it will have to close hospitals to improve services. But it also doesn't really want to say that, because it makes people angry. So tonight's speech, which you can read in full below, includes an announcement that Labour would not close hospitals without involving local people in the decision. Miliband said: 'I am not going to make promises I can’t keep particularly on this issue. No service can stand still.

How many FTSE 100 chief executives support Labour? How many FTSE 250 chief execs back Ed Miliband? Difficult questions for Chuka Umunna, Labour's Shadow Business Secretary, in his outing on the BBC's Sunday Politics today. Labour’s plan to jack up the top rate of income tax to 52 per cent (up from 47 per cent) has sent a fairly clear message about its attitude to business. Digby Jones, an ex-CBI boss who served in Gordon Brown’s government, has summarized Miliband’s position as: 'if it creates wealth, let’s kick it.' Stuart Rose, ex-M&S ceo, says the 50p tax borders on 'predatory taxation.' The head of the London Stock Exchange says Milband’s 50p tax (or 52p, when you count National Insurance) will deter entrepreneurs.

[audioplayer src="http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_6_February_2014_v4.mp3" title="James Forsyth and Marcus Roberts discuss Labour's election strategy" startat=702] Listen [/audioplayer]At the end of last year, there was an expectation that Labour’s internal reforms would be one of the big themes of the first quarter of the year. But this week, Labour’s National Executive Committee voted through the changes by the comfortable margin of 28 to 2 and with remarkably little dissent. The absence of a public row over the issue makes it tempting to think that the changes don’t amount to much. But this would be wrong. Labour is going to scrap its current electoral-college split between MPs, the Unions and members and replace it with a one member one vote system.

There were lots of sniggers at the back when Ed Miliband failed to make the list of the Most Connected Men in Britain, drawn up by Editorial Intelligence for GQ. Plenty of Labour stooges did make the list, so we can reject claims of bias. Ed’s grumpy spinmeister Tom Baldwin is on it, as is Shadow Education Secretary the Hon. Tristram Hunt. Even David Miliband, who has left these shores, made the cut. Now, call Mr S an old cynic but it seems that more column inches have been devoted to Ed not being on this list, than would ever be given over had he scraped on. If only Labour were this good at this spin malarkey.

Ed Miliband certainly looks a little shifty as he examines the products of Five Points Brewing Company in Hackney. Mr Steerpike is very keen for readers to suggest what he's up to. Captions in the comments please.

Cunning work from Milband at PMQs. He played Syria like a fixed-odds betting machine and came away with a minor jackpot. Last week he had urged the prime minister to accept a few hundred of the neediest Syrian refugees. Cameron duly said OK. Today Miliband was quick to claim a victory for decency, for humanity, and for Miliband. ‘I welcome this significant change of heart,’ he said. Choice word, heart. He’s got it. And Cameron hasn’t. That’s the implication. Miliband tried the same tactic with the 50p tax rate. When Ed Balls unfurled this this new policy he got a mixed bag of reviews. Economists put their fingers in their ears and ran around wimpering. The popular response suggested it was a top ten hit.

Syria overshadowed PMQs today. The chamber was quiet and sombre. And both leaders were clearly about to do their world-statesman bit. Ed Miliband rose to his feet with an air of ineffable goodness. He looked like St Peter on his way to donate the dead Judas’s sandals to a charity shop. He asked about Britain’s readiness to accept Syrian refugees in accordance with a UN directive. Britain, said Cameron, is already the second largest donor to Syria. And the crisis can’t be solved by few hundred refugee placements. Miliband used two more questions to press the case for ‘orphans who had lost both parents.’ Cameron said he was prepared to ‘listen to the arguments’. ‘I feel we are gradually inching forward on this issue,’ said Miliband.

Ed Miliband tends to enjoy success when he's either stealing someone else's clothes or offering a possibly unworkable policy that sounds catchy. This morning on the Andrew Marr Show he tried both tactics. Having nicked One Nation from the Tories and repeated the phrase so often that they probably don't want it back, Miliband is now trying to ape a Republican president, Theodore Roosevelt. His close colleague Lord Wood sets out why Labour thinks this is a space it can jump into in a piece for Coffee House. listen to ‘Ed Miliband on the Andrew Marr Show’ on Audioboo The catchy line from this Roosevelt-style crusade is that Labour is now the party of competition, with Miliband planning to appoint consumer groups such as Which?