Ed miliband

David Cameron’s statement on the European summit just now was an opportunity for pro-European politicians to tweak the Conservative party’s tail about the coalition’s stance on Europe. Ed Miliband told the PM that on Europe ‘we’re here to help him’ and ‘we’re prepared to ignore his previous convictions if he is too.’ Charles Kennedy welcomed the PM as a new pro-European. While Denis MacShane, the very communitaire former Europe Minister, said that there was nothing in Cameron’s statement he disagreed with. There was some grumbling from the Tory benches. Sir Peter Tapsell asked why if Merkel can get a Treaty amended can’t Cameron do the same and allow the country

Oh look, the Old Crowd are moving in on the New Generation’s patch. Not only has David Miliband broken his post-defeat silence with an engaging little article in the Mail on Sunday, but we also have news that Gordon Brown is to make his first Commons speech since the general election. That’s right, after 174 paid days of, erm, indiscernible activity, Gordon will tomorrow insist that maintenance on Britain’s two new aircraft carriers should be carried out on a Scottish shipyard, rather than in France. Everyone else is surprised that he didn’t get that written into the contracts already. The return of the Gord throws up some questions for Ed

Ed Miliband’s speech in Scotland this afternoon was a strange beast. So much of it was typical of the new Labour leader: for instance, the incessant stream of words like “optimism,” “new” and “change”. Some of it was rather surprising, such as the lengthy and warm tribute he paid to Gordon Brown at the start. One passage on the flaws of the Big Society (from a Labour perspective, natch) set out a philosophically intriguing dividing line. And his challenge over housing benefit was quite swashbuckling, in a Westminster-ish kind of way. But there’s one line I’d like to focus on, because I’m sure it will come up again and again.

The growth figures for the third quarter of the year have just been released, and it’s better than we thought: 0.8 percent, twice the 0.4 percent figure that was expected, but down on the 1.2 percent achieved in the spring. In any case, it should play well for Osborne & Co. We’ve just witnessed the fastest third-quarter expansion of the economy for a decade. Double speed, rather than double dip. Really, though, these figures throw up more questions than conclusions. By far the most important is: where next? The coalition would have been untroubled by an even larger reduction in growth now (caused by weak consumer spending, among other variables),

An opportunity to compare-and-contrast David Cameron and Ed Miliband outside the sweaty heat of PMQs, with both party leaders delivering speeches to the CBI this morning. Given the audience, both majored on business, enterprise, and all that – and it meant there was plenty of overlap on areas such as green technology and broadband. There were some differences, though, that are worth noting down. Cameron was first up, setting out a three-step plan for boosting British business. Broadly speaking, it revolved around what the government is trying to achieve in the Spending Review – and so the PM boasted that, “last week, we took Britain out of the danger zone.”

Derek Simpson has had a Damascene conversion. The gnarled bruiser, famous for telling Alistair Darling to ‘tax the bankers out of existence’, has backed Les Bayliss, the moderate candidate in the race to lead Unite. According to Sophy Ridge at the News of the World, Simpson added: ‘Ranting and raving from the side lines will only keep Labour in opposition for a generation. The cuts announced this week are the tip of a very nasty iceberg but the task of opposing them will be complex. Only one candidate standing in the Unite general secretary election has in my mind the skills for this difficult job.  Les Bayliss has the skills and

Andrew Gilligan explains why Lutfur Rahman’s victory in Tower Hamlets is a potentially alarming development. Obviously, this is a humiliation for Ed Miliband. The victory of a de-selected Labour councillor is bad enough, but what does he say about Ken Livingstone’s involvement in Rahman’s campaign? Widening those imploring eyes, offering an apologetic shrug and saying “Ken will be Ken” probably won’t cut the mustard this time. Perversely, Livingstone might benefit from Rahman’s victory, as it has allowed him to resuscitate his ‘Red Ken the insurgent’ pose – and you can’t get much more cynically subversive than this latest stunt. Questions will and should be asked of his close association with

Cameron was a mere warm-up man at PMQs today. With Osborne’s statement due at 12.30 the session felt like a friendly knock-up rather than the main fixture. Ed Miliband rose to thunderous cheers from his backbenches and he tried to capitalise on their support by opening up an ancient Tory wound – heartless attitudes to unemployment. Spotting Cameron chinwagging with Osborne instead of listening, Miliband chided the PM for not paying attention. ‘Well, it’s a novel concept,’ said Dave smoothly ‘but in this government the prime minister and the chancellor speak to each other.’   Ed’s problem was that the OBR has predicted rising employment for the next three years.

David Cameron delivered his statement on the Strategic Defence and Security Review with few rhetorical flourishes. He had two main messages: i) the mission in Afghanistan would be spared from the 8 percent cuts in this Parliament’s defence budget, and ii) the problems the review is trying to deal with stem from the fact that “the last government got it badly wrong.”   The appalling legacy that Labour has left the coalition on defence rather hamstrung Ed Miliband in his response. The most memorable line in it was a gag about how he had advance sight of the statement in ‘today’s papers, Monday’s papers, Sunday’s papers.’ Indeed, trickier for Cameron