Ed miliband

Surprise, surprise — Michael Gove doesn’t think much of Ed Miliband. To keep up the momentum on Labour’s summer of discontent, the Education Secretary gave a speech at Conservative HQ this morning, focusing on Labour’s troubled relationship with the trade unions — again. He was clearly enjoying himself as he compared the Labour leader’s present position to two of the party’s moderate forces: ‘And if anyone thinks I am asking too much I ask simply this – what would Blair do? Indeed, what would even Kinnock have done? ‘The sad truth is that – charming, intelligent, eloquent, thoughtful, generous and chivalrous as Ed Miliband may be – in this critical

Labour has decided that the cost of living is the best way to attack the Tories while it tries to fathom what its own policies are. This is a rich seam to mine, and the party wants to ask voters whether they are really any better off than they were five years ago. But Ed Miliband and his team may be reckoning without the energetic attack dog mood that the Tories are in at the moment. They are keen to fight Labour on this turf, too, rather than giving any ground. So confident are the Conservatives that rather than defend their record, they are also going on the defensive, launching

I have never quite understood Ed Miliband’s appeal. He always reminds me of Cuthbert Cringeworthy from The Bash Street Kids. I find it hard to imagine him becoming Prime Minister. Something just feels wrong about that. I’m not alone in wondering about this. Brian Wilson, the former energy minister, wrote yesterday that Miliband still has a kind of credibility problem. People just don’t think he’s quite ready for the top job. They may not be able to say exactly why they’re unimpressed by Miliband; they just know they are. Not so fast my friend, responds John McTernan today. Ignore all the chattering and blethering about Labour’s slide in the polls and

If David Blunkett fancies being a kindly older mentor for the current Labour shadow cabinet, perhaps he could start by getting them all on television a little more, if only to say how great they think Ed Miliband is as party leader. As the summer has worn on and the Labour leader’s troubles have thickened like a sauce, the shadow cabinet seems to have evaporated, according to this analysis of the last time any of them pitched up on the airwaves: · Maria Eagle appeared on BBC News (13 August 2013) · Caroline Flint appeared on Daybreak (9 August 2013). · Owen Smith appeared on the Today Programme (7 August

Ed Miliband has already managed to steal a big pile of clothing from the Tories by pinching the One Nation tagline for his own party. But this weekend Chuka Umunna offered the beleaguered Labour leader another Tory tag that he might not be quite so keen on. Trying to defend the party, the Shadow Business Secretary said: ‘The Shadow Cabinet and the leader of the Labour party are doing a huge amount already to sell Labour to the electorate which is why we’ve won back almost 2,000 councillors since Ed Miliband became leader of the party and of course as we move to the general election we will be turning

‘Well the cost of living can’t be that high if people can waste eggs’, chortled many a wag today as silly season exploded all over Ed Miliband’s face and jacket. As reported, the shell-shocked Labour leader was in South London to talk about the rising cost of living under the Tories, but had his media appearance poached by a protester hurling a dozen eggs at him. Giving Miliband the benefit of the doubt for a moment, how have living costs risen? Let’s take a piece of random household expenditure, something that immediately springs to mind. Eggs, say. Wholesale cost of eggs in the UK (pence per dozen) Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/egg-statistics According to figures from Defra,

The Electoral Commission’s latest release on donations to political parties in the second quarter of 2013 are quite handy for the Tories. Firstly, there’s the caveat that no party really benefits from discussing funding because everyone ends up looking a little bit grubby, and because the only thing grubbier and more unattractive to voters would be full state funding of political parties, then this will always be a grubby-looking business. So of course there are donations from big business to the Conservative party (although the biggest individual donor to the Tories was in fact a woman who wanted to donate money to the ‘government of the day’ in her will,

Labour’s failure to fill the summer news vacuum has now become a news story in itself. Ed Miliband comes back from holiday to find the Sunday papers full of stories about Labour grumbling, shadow Cabinet reshuffles and the like. But there’ll be no dramatic return by Miliband. There are no plans for big set piece speeches or a whistle-stop tour of Britain. One reason why Miliband himself has been so quiet this summer is that conference is already dominating his, and his team’s, thoughts. As I say in the Mail on Sunday today, they view conference as crucial to their efforts to persuade the country that Miliband is Prime Ministerial.

Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary, has given an interview to the Guardian which has excited the Tories. Tory chairman Grant Shapps has said: ‘This shows that even senior members of Labour’s top team think Ed Miliband doesn’t have what it takes to stand up for hardworking people.’ It’s a familiar refrain; but for once the spin rings fairly true. Here’s the crucial passage from Decca Aitkenhead’s piece: ‘…when I ask if he’s worried by how long Labour is taking to come out with a set of flagship policies that explain what they stand for, he agrees. “Definitely. I think there’s definitely a need to shout louder, and speak in a

Tom Watson might be preparing to fly half round the world to continue his fight against Rupert Murdoch. But Ed Miliband has still not named a replacement for Watson as Labour’s campaign coordinator. It was thought that the contest for this role was between Michael Dugher, who was part of Watson’s team and is the choice of the Labour machine, and Douglas Alexander, the shadow Foreign Secretary, who ran Labour’s 2010 general election campaign and David Miliband’s leadership bid. Vernon Coaker, who is in line for promotion from the Northern Ireland brief in the coming reshuffle, was also considered a contender. But Patrick Wintour reports that two new names have

Ed Miliband is rumoured to be on the verge of sacking shadow education secretary Stephen Twigg, who is simply no match for Michael Gove’s flair and intellect. I hear that Vernon Coaker, who was Children, Schools and Families Minister under Brown and Balls, is in line for promotion. Coaker is a former teacher and seasoned political pugilist, so he would certainly brighten things up. But the damp Twigg has not given up, not yet. As is his wont, he has penned a letter to the Times Education Supplement. And, as ever, it is not a success. Among the usual bleats about Gove being a rabble rousing ‘ideologue’, I noticed this line: ‘Like a shark in

‘We are going to see how thick their rectory walls are, whether they like the flaring at the end of the drive!’ Said Michael Fallon in jest at the expense of supporters of fracking in the Home Counties. As it happens, our very own Charles Moore lives in a rectory in East Sussex. He wrote this in the Spectator a few weeks back: ‘Another great advance for the environment is shale gas, though for some reason Greens do not see it that way. It will make us — and has already made America — far less dependent on high carbon-emitting sources of energy. It is lucky for those trying to extract