Labour party

Forget the European elections, which everyone (particularly those who fancy causing a bit of grief for David Cameron) expects to produce humiliating results for the Conservatives. The elections that have a longer-lasting impact that take place on the same day are the local elections. I look at the emphasis the Tories are putting on campaigning in the locals that goes over and above anything they're doing for seats in Brussels, in my Telegraph column today. But even those areas that don't have concurrent local and European polls on 22 May aren't exhausting themselves on campaigning for the European elections. Last year, the Conservatives tried to manage expectations by suggesting at one point that they would lose up to 750 seats - in the end they lost 335.

Dan Hodges' piece in this week's Spectator on the team around Ed Miliband is a must-read (and we've posted an even longer version online here). As he runs through those working with the Labour leader, a clear pattern emerges. There doesn't seem to be a Lynton Crosby equivalent working with Miliband. One of the many things that make Crosby so important to the Conservative party is his ability to swear at them and tell them they're doing something wrong. Miliband doesn't have a Crosby-esque character in that respect. Instead, all those around him seem keen to either demonstrate that they are the most loyal, in a Uriah Heep-esque display of servility, or to bolster Miliband confidence.

There's something quite amusing about a party that majored on the number of Etonians in the Cabinet as the substantive part of its response to the Budget briefing the Independent that it won't stoop to 'class war' in its 2015 election campaign. Labour, apparently, will occupy the moral high ground next year, which suggests the party will have to change its messaging quite significantly from this: 'What do this lot now call themselves? They call themselves the workers’ party. Who is writing the manifesto for this workers’ party? We have a helpful answer from one Conservative MP: “There are six people writing the manifesto…five…went to Eton”.

Nigel Farage’s strategy for winning the European Elections is based around winning over blue collar workers who normally vote Labour. Ukip believe that they can use immigration as a battering ram to break through Labour’s defences in the north. One of the party’s campaign billboards unveiled last night simply says, ’26 million people in Europe are looking for work. And whose jobs are they after’. (I suspect that Ukip will welcome the controversy these posters are attracting because it will help amplify their message) https://twitter.com/Adrian_Hilton/statuses/458163441531097088 Ukip’s argument is that it is the only party that can actually do something about immigration.

All three main parties have now hired foreign advisers to help run their general election campaigns. These foreign advisers have one thing in common: they’re all from the English speaking world. Despite our membership of the European Union, when it comes to winning elections, all our political parties think there is more to learn from other English speaking countries than France or Italy. Indeed, it is hard to imagine any of them putting a European in charge of their campaign. But they are all delighted to have their American, Australian and South African campaign hands. Partly, this is a language thing. But, I think, it also goes deeper than that.

There was much excitement on Tuesday night when Labour's Pat McFadden, a former business and employment minister, appeared on Newsnight and said: 'I want to see a Labour Party that takes wealth creation every bit as seriously as its fair distribution. I’m all for justice and fairness in the work place. But you have got to create wealth too.' Tory spinners set to work. ‘Miliband needs to show that wealth creation matters,’ they said. ‘Even his supporters are critical.’ Tory spinners would say that, wouldn’t they? McFadden was merely one disgruntled voice (and with some form). But the chorus of concern has built over the last 24 hours; encouraged, no doubt, by the improving inflation, employment and wage numbers.

Despite the stream of very good economic news (as described by Fraser and James), you won’t catch ministers saying that the crisis in living standards is ‘over’ because there is plenty of evidence to the contrary. The Trussell Trust, the Christian charity, has today published new statistics on food bank use. The headline figure is shocking: “913,138 people received three days’ emergency food from Trussell Trust foodbanks in 2013-14 compared to 346,992 in 2012-13”. The trust says that this is merely ‘the tip of the iceberg’ because the figures do not account for other foodbank providers. There is also, the trust says, no way of estimating how many people are too ashamed to use a foodbank and prefer to go hungry instead.

Keith Vaz was in full oil slick mode on Friday night when he found himself as the only Labour MP at the Asian Business Awards in Waterloo. Surrounded by dozens of Tories, including Priti Patel, Alok Sharma and Shailesh Vara, Vaz laid it on thick, telling the audience 'that was the best speech I've ever heard from a politician to Asian audience.' Who was worthy of such high praise? Why, none other than Labour's favourite bogeyman Michael Gove. Vaz continued: 'I was almost tempted to defect; but I'll wait until next year'. Well, creeping around the enemy never did John Bercow's campaign to become the Speaker any harm.

When is a conference not a conference? When it’s a rally. Sitting in the hall listening to Alex Salmond this afternoon, it was hard to ignore the feeling that this SNP Spring Conference was about as far away from a party conference as it was possible to get. It really was a political rally – and quite a scary one too. The warm-up acts for the Scottish First Minister consisted of folk singers from the Hebrides singing ‘it’s our country’ and a group of shouty actors putting on extracts from a pro-independence play which will premiere in Edinburgh this summer.

Oh dear. Miliband was all set to give Cameron an almighty hammering at today’s PMQs, but Maria Miller’s resignation blew up his ammunition dump. Mr Bercow rose at the start and begged everyone to ‘show a good example’ as there were ‘children present.’ Indeed there were. All across the green benches. The Miller saga has given us seven days of unseemly viewing. The family is gathered at the bedside of a rich but ailing matriarch. All are affecting tragic expressions while smirking behind their unwetted handkerchiefs and mentally calculating their gains. But the biggest loser was Miliband. He wanted to turn Miller’s capsize into a character issue. He said the PM had made an ‘error of judgement’ that had ‘undermined trust’.

Ed Miliband faces a big decision tonight, does he use PMQs tomorrow to call for Maria Miller’s resignation. So far, he has limited himself to saying that Cameron has questions to answer about how this whole business has been handled. But if Miliband went for it at PMQs, it would keep this story going for yet another day. It would also fit Miliband’s argument that Cameron is a Prime Minister who ‘stands up for the wrong people’. Set against this, though, is the question of whether it is in the interests of any party to get into a row over expenses. Tory MPs are quick to point out that five Labour MPs—and no Tories or Lib Dems—have been found guilty of expenses fraud by a court and sent to prison.

It’s unfashionable to talk about the battle for the centre ground these days. The fight to win political credibility is conducted through a new prism. Populists versus the establishment, centralisers versus decentralisers, radicals versus those in favour of shrinking the offer. But the fundamentals remain the same, and much of the hard-fought credibility that Tony Blair and Gordon Brown earned during Labour’s three General Election victories is now the target of sustained Tory fire. And my worry is that Labour’s not taking it seriously enough. The last Tory Government used to speak in strident, right wing terms. 'Unemployment is a price worth paying', 'the homeless are what you step over when you come out of the opera' are some of the most memorable examples.

After all the excitement of Nick vs Nigel and the endless mutterings in the Tory party about uprisings following the European elections, you might be forgiven for thinking that the European elections are the only game in town in May. But there are 4,161 local council seats up for election on the same day - and the main parties are quite keen to make big efforts to secure a good result in those polls. The Conservatives have been holding campaign days in London, where many of the seats up for election are located, and making those local council seats a focus for the parliamentary party, which descends on different areas to canvass and deliver leaflets on set days. The whips hold their campaign days on Tuesdays and take a band of MPs along with them.

Len McCluskey spoke to the press gallery lunch on April Fools' Day. It would have been more fitting had the Unite leader not been such an impressive, witty, and thorough speaker. And much of what he said wasn't very jokey at all: Ed Miliband, I suspect, will not be chuckling away as McCluskey's remarks are relayed to him. The Unite leader told the Press Gallery that there could be a situation where his union votes to change its rules so that it can donate to political parties other than Labour. Labour, he told the listening hacks, is 'at a crossroads' and he fears for its future if the party loses in 2015: 'Only if we change our rules, within Unite's rules, we are affiliated to the Labour party. We cannot give any financial support to any other political party.

Ed Miliband tried to reassure his MPs this week that the party just needed to weather a temporary blip. But one question the Labour leader will be (or should be) contemplating which is quite separate from the squally polls is whether his top team can repair increasingly public tensions which are as much about personality as they are about strategy. The Mail on Sunday reports another fissure between Douglas Alexander and Michael Dugher, while Andrew Rawnsley has a useful guide to the major fault lines in the party. This morning on Marr, Douglas Alexander was asked to comment on reports that his party had fired Arnie Graf as community organising election supremo.