Ed miliband

We already knew Ed Balls was behind Gordon Brown’s economic policy. He devised the policy on spending that left Britain with the worst deficit heading into the crisis, and wrote the bank regulations that his colleague Douglas Alexander attacked earlier today.   What we have discovered today, from Balls’ first foray into economic policy as Shadow Chancellor, is that he was also behind the old Brown ploy of twisted facts and absurd assertions.   First, he claimed the public finances are better than the Treasury forecast. Yet the independent Office for Budget Responsibility found that the structural deficit – the hole we have to fix – was worse than Labour

After the gales of recent weeks, the past few days must have been relatively blissful for the Lib Dems. No fake constituents with hidden dictaphones. No massive student protests. No especial focus on their opinion poll ratings. But, instead, a mephitic heap of problems, or at least embarrassments, for Labour and the Tories. Warsi, Johnson, Coulson, even EMAs – Clegg & Co. have been spared the worst of it. Which isn’t to say that the Lib Dems will be unaffected by recent events. For instance, as Paul Goodman suggests, Andy Coulson’s departure unsettles the delicate balance of the coalition – and that will always have ramifications, however minute, for the

The timing could hardly have been more resonant. On the day that Tony Blair is paraded, once again, in front of the Iraq Inquiry, Team Brown is firmly back in charge of the Labour party. For, I’m sure you’ve noticed CoffeeHousers, three of the four great shadow offices of state are occupied by former members of the Brown coterie: Ed Miliband, Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper. The fourth belongs to someone who doesn’t sit easily in either half of the TB-GB divide: Douglas Alexander. The question, of course, is what this means for Labour’s economic policy. And the answer according to Miliband is “nothing much”. The Labour leader has been

Both The Mail and The Sun are running on their front pages that Alan Johnson’s wife is allegedly having an affair with his bodyguard. There are, though, other rumours referenced in other papers. The Tory view this evening is that they now face a tactically harder fight but a strategically easier one. They fully expect Balls to snap at Osborne’s ankles more effectively than Johnson did. But they think that Balls’ previous on the economy and his oft-expressed views on a double dip and the Darling plan will help them overall. One thing worth noting this evening is that Liam Byrne’s appointment to shadow Iain Duncan-Smith shows that Ed Miliband

Labour are on the up. They strolled Oldham. They’ve recruited great armies of Clegg’s defectors. And they’d win a majority if a general election were held tomorrow. There’s been a lot of excited talk in Westminster about Tom Baldwin, Labour’s new communications attack-dog, coming in with his fangs bared and sharpening up their tactics. Well, it ain’t working so far, if PMQs is anything to go by. Ed Miliband had his dentures in today. He was humourless, slow to react and sometimes inaudible. His questions didn’t resemble even the most basic PMQs battle-plan, namely, a pre-meditated onslaught culminating in a simple powerful message presented in a memorable one-liner. He asked

Today’s shocking inflation figures have sparked a fascinating debate. I laid out my take earlier, and I thought CoffeeHousers may appreciate a different perspective. Matthew Hancock MP is a member of the Public Accounts Committee, former economist at the Bank of England and former chief of staff to George Osborne. Fraser Nelson. Last week, growth. This week, inflation. Ed Miliband is complaining about both. But the trouble is: the two can’t be taken in isolation. For the main weapon against inflation is for the Bank of England to raise interest rates. Yet the main weapon to support growth is for the Bank of England to keep interest rates lower for

Ed Miliband’s leadership may be young, but his trickery on the public finances is already well worn. We got it all in his interview with Andrew Marr earlier – and then some. There was the claim that Labour “paid down the debt” (that I dealt with here). There was the claim that Labour’s spending was responsible (my response here). And there was a straight-up lie about Miliband’s forecast for a double-dip. So far, so Brown. What caught my ear, though, was this exchange: Andrew Marr: I mean Tony Blair said in his memoir that by 2005, he was worried that the party was spending too much. And Alistair Darling said

Did he get cold feet? Or was his new spin-team overenthusiastic in their pre-briefing? We were told we’d get an apology from Ed Miliband in today’s speech, but instead he entrenched himself in his position that Labour did nothing wrong on the deficit. I’m surprised at this decision. Surely Ed Miliband understands, as his Shadow Chancellor understands, the central importance to an opposition party of economic credibility. That credibility will not return while Miliband bases his economic argument on a denial of the facts. First, and critically, he argues that Britain’s deficit was not a problem going into the crisis. Not only is this disputed by an impressive array of

The Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election now raises the distinct possibility that Labour could win the next election by default. People on the left have been wondering for some time what could unite the multiple and often contradictory tribes of the Labour Party and it looks like “Tory cuts” and “Lib-Dem broken promises” could do the trick. Simple, crude, disingenuous – perfect. Krishnan Guru-Murthy is half-right when he tweets “paradoxically, real danger may be for Labour…if they conclude they are ‘back in the game’ already”. Collectively (and morally) this is true. But the bizarre situation we find ourselves in is that the electorate remains unconvinced by Ed Miliband and yet