Labour party

Millionaire hippy Dale Vince OBE has written Ed Miliband a cheque for a quarter of a million to counter the struggling Labour leader's business credentials. Worth some £107 million, Vince, who founded Ecotricity, claims 'there’s no way to my mind that the Labour Party is anti-business'. And that's not the only daft thing he has said. Asked by Daisy Green Magazine about whether he was a vegan for environmental or compassionate reasons, Vince replied: 'It's for both those reasons and also it's on health grounds (meat and dairy are bad for us) - and it's because the idea of treating animals in the way we do, subjecting them and their families to this incredibly violent and cruel 'holocaust' year in and out - is just so barbaric and immoral.

Labour is launching its women’s campaign tomorrow, and Guido has discovered that part of this special campaign is a special battle bus. A pink bus. A pink bus with ‘Woman to Woman’ on it. This is odd, from a party whose MPs are quite keen on campaigning for gender neutral toys and which lent its support to the Pink Stinks campaign. Where will the pink van go? To shopping centres and nail bars? Perhaps it will offer manifesto manicures, where the party’s pledge card is stuck onto acrylic nails so that women can’t forget about what Labour is offering - because as the No campaign in the Scottish independence referendum reminded us, it’s pretty difficult thinking about Big Things when you’ve got the housework to do.

After the Scottish referendum campaign, the Union could probably have done with a period of calm. But it is not going to get it. Who gets to form a government at Westminster after the next election could turn on what happens in Scotland and how many seats the SNP wins. This fact is making both Labour and the Tories behave in ways that are damaging to the Union. Jim Murphy, the new leader of Scottish Labour, has decided to try and show that he is prepared to pick fights with London too, in the hope that will take some of the wind out of the Nationalists’ sales. Hence his deliberately provocative boast that via the mansion tax Labour would ‘tax houses in London and the South East to pay for 1,000 new nurses in the Scottish NHS. It’s a real win-win for Scotland.

With every week that goes by, the more likely it is that the next election could result in a stalemate with neither Labour nor the Tories able to put together a deal that gives them a majority in the Commons. One Downing Street source, who has crunched the numbers, predicted to me last week that, because of what is going on in Scotland, the Tories will be the largest party on 280-odd seats. But if the Tories have only 280-odd seats, even deals with both the Liberal Democrats and the Democratic Unionists wouldn’t give them a majority. But Labour wouldn’t be able to stich one together either. For, as I report in the Mail on Sunday, the Lib Dem leadership would not put Ed Miliband into Downing Street if he came second in terms of seats and votes.

Andy Burnham’s interview in The Times today lays down several markers. He praises Len McCluskey, declares that trade union funding is best for Labour, slates Alan Milburn, criticises Peter Mandelson for being relaxed about people getting filthy rich and distances himself from the Blairite mantra that ‘what matters is what works.’ It will, to put it mildly, do nothing to discourage speculation that he is preparing to run for the leadership on a left-wing ticket if Labour loses the election. To be fair, Burnham is frank in this interview that he has changed his mind on various subjects. As he puts it, 'There was a period in the 80s and 90s and the first decade of this century when people said the market has the answer to everything and I honestly don’t think it has .

Is Ed Miliband ready to be Prime Minister? His personal poll ratings suggest not and many in his party remain sceptical. But Labour remains toe-to-toe with the Conservatives in the polls, making a Miliband premiership a real possibility after 7 May. The FT’s George Parker and Jim Pickard have interviewed the Labour leader (£) today to find out why Miliband is still confident he can lead the country, despite the negativity surrounding his leadership. One of the fascinating nuggets in the piece is the claim that two of the most influential figures in New Labour plotted to remove him as leader: ‘Miliband’s Labour critics do not share his confidence.

What are you doing when you vote? Much of the discussion about elections assumes – implicitly or explicitly – that voters are making a judgement about policies being put forward by the parties; that they would only vote for a party which had policies with which they broadly agreed; and, moreover, that these policies will have to form a vaguely coherent programme, and be realistic and affordable. Even allowing for that fact that we know that many voters don’t know the details of the various policies proposed, it is still widely assumed that they would care if they knew. This is why there is so much discussion of policy proposals as elections approach (‘but how will you fund x, Minister?

'Labour promises "no PM pictures"' reported the BBC three days ago: 'The party said it would focus on issues rather than personalities. and not use negative personal campaigning. Its election strategist Douglas Alexander said the Conservatives were preparing to spread "fear and smear".' That was Sunday, and today is Wednesday and the official Scottish Labour Party Twitter account is punting out 'negative personal campaigning' using the PM's picture. It seems there is one rule for billboards and quite another for social media:   Who benefits most from more SNP MPs? The Tories. #VoteSNPGetTories pic.twitter.