Ed miliband

When Ed Miliband peaks, he really knows how to do it. His speech at last autumn’s Labour conference was magnificent. Given the pressure on him to convince the unions to back his reforms to their links to the Labour party, you’d expect he’d have picked today’s address to the Trades Union Congress conference to deliver another blinder. Sadly today was not a peak in the range of Miliband speeches. Sure, he produced a vaguely funny joke about a chap called ‘Red Ed’ who was in fact the Conservative Prime Minister Edward Stanley. Miliband told the conference that Stanley was ‘the man who first legislated to allow trade unions in this

David Cameron’s statement to the Commons on the G20 wasn’t as lyrical as his response to Russia’s ‘small island jibe’. But it was a reminder of the needle that now exists between Cameron and Miliband. In previous times, these statements—which are far less tense affairs than PMQs—have seen a bit of badinage between the two front benches. But that has now gone. The statement was dominated by Syria, which Cameron called the ‘refugee crisis of our time’. When Cameron talks about his defeat in the Commons on Syria, he speaks very quickly, with no pauses between the words. It’s as if he wants to get talking about it over as

When Ed Miliband was booed at the TUC in 2011, there was quiet delight among many of his closest aides. They thought that this jeering would help put some distance between Miliband and the unions and show that he wasn’t their puppet despite the role they had played in his election. But this year, the booing that Miliband is expected to receive will matter far more. Miliband is now engaged in a defining struggle with the union machine over his party reforms. As I say in the Mail on Sunday today, if he doesn’t get them through, then he’ll be a busted flush as a leader. Unite being cleared by

David Aaronovitch’s furious Times column this morning described Ed Miliband as a vulture, swooping down on problems caused by this government rather than leading. If he wanted another example of how this leadership style has affected the rest of the Labour party, he could have done worse than to attend the Commons urgent question on universal credit this morning. There, Liam Byrne attacked Iain Duncan Smith’s handling of the project, saying: ‘What I want to say to the Secretary of State, however, is this: he has let this House form a picture of universal credit, which the nation’s auditor’s say is wrong. The most charitable explanation is that he has

MPs piled into the Chamber expecting a blood and thunder affair. But instead it was rather subdued. Ed Miliband chose to ask six questions about the Syrian situation concentrating on the humanitarian and diplomatic situation and Cameron had to respond in measured tones. Though, one could sense that Cameron would have loved to have gone for Miliband. listen to ‘Miliband questions Cameron on Syria at PMQs’ on Audioboo The most needle came in their finale exchange when Miliband declared that last week’s vote had not been about Britain withdrawing from the world but ‘preventing a rush to war’. Cameron witheringly replied that his regret was that Miliband had chosen ‘to

After the special relationship was found still breathing this afternoon, is there a chance UK involvement in Syria action might have life in it yet? If Congress does not debate and vote on action until 9 September, there is time for the UN weapons inspectors to report and the UN Security Council to vote. This assumes Congress does approve action (and Obama said he was confident he would get the support, hopefully based on better intelligence than that which led Cameron to be equally confident at the start of this week). But if all of those conditions are met, would the Labour party support action? If they would – and

A muddle and a cock-up. For all the talk of parliament reasserting itself, last night’s vote on Syria showed a parliament that voted, twice, to oppose actions it actually supports. David Cameron has been humiliated but this was hardly a banner day for Ed Miliband either. The House of Commons has, for now, cut off its nose to spite its face. Perhaps surgery can repair the damage. Perhaps it can’t. Because the longer and more deeply one contemplates yesterday’s events the more evident it seems that there were no winners. The government motion was defeated. So was Labour’s amendment. Since these motions were, in essence and in most practical respects,

To be fair to David Cameron, he’s not the only leader who’s performed a volte-face in the past 24 hours. If you’d listened to Ed Miliband yesterday afternoon, you might have been forgiven for thinking that he was quite likely to support the government’s motion on Syria, so long as it was and ‘legal’ and had specific and limited aims. listen to ‘Ed Miliband: Labour would consider supporting limited action in Syria’ on Audioboo

David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband this afternoon gave statements on Britain’s response to the use of chemical weapons in Syria. There were important similarities between the statements which are worth examining. Here is what we learned: 1. The action must be legal. Miliband told the cameras after the meeting that ‘when I saw the Prime Minister this afternoon I said to him that we the Labour party would consider supporting international action, but only on the basis that it was legal’. Meanwhile Clegg and Cameron both insisted that the measures being considered were legal. Clegg said: ‘Any steps we will take will have to be legal. This Government,