Labour party

Alex Salmond might not wish to be compared to Gordon Brown but there is one sense in which the two dominant Scottish political personalities of the age are more alike than either would care to acknowledge: they each love a good dividing line. In Edinburgh yesterday Salmond announced that all pupils in their first three years of primary school would henceforth be entitled to a free school lunch. This, he claimed, would save parents £330 a year per child. A useful benefit for those parents whose offspring do not currently qualify for free meals; a means of ending, the First Minister suggested, the stigma presently endured by those children who do rely on free meals. Labour voted against the proposal. Cue much celebration in Natland. Another dividing line has been established.

Ed Miliband did vow to 'relentlessly' focus on the cost of living crisis facing hardworking families up and down the country (hopefully someone will develop a shorthand outline for this rather lengthy saying to save the pens of journalists who have to write it down repeatedly at launch events over the next 12 months) in 2014. So we should have expected this relentless focus to see Miliband's shadow ministers pointing angrily at every expensive thing that they can find, regardless of whether it's particularly heart-rending. Today we heard Luciana Berger thundering that David Cameron is so evil that he's putting people off their new year's resolutions.

Yes, Eric Joyce, the MP for Falkirk until the next election, has issues. Yes, his copy book is well blotted. He has a conviction for assault which scarcely reflects splendidly upon him (even if many members of the public themselves wouldn't mind sticking-the-heid on any number of MPs) and in his dozen or so years in Westminster he has made energetic use of his parliamentary allowances. Yes, yes, yes. But I have some time for almost anyone declared "unfit to stand for the Labour party". It's a kind of character reference. Moreover and despite his troubles, Joyce possesses many of the qualities we should desire in our parliamentary representatives. Chief of these, intelligence and an independent spirit. He may be mistaken on many issues but that's not the point.

Ed Miliband's housebuilding announcement today is rather a re-heated announcement of his conference pledges on housing. Eric Pickles has already set out on Coffee House his belief that these new ideas are 'more of the same high-tax and top-down policies that led to their housing boom and bust'. The announcement certainly allows for a bit of a knockabout between the two parties, neither of which has much to boast about when it comes to housing, but there's one point that's worth noting about the Labour leader's announcement today.

This week's Mail on Sunday carried two stories on the same page about immigration. Perhaps unwittingly the two stories — and one man in particular — demonstrate the craziness of this country's immigration debate. One story was about a Conservative party candidate at the 2010 election who has defected to UKIP. Her ex-husband has released a video made while she was a Conservative candidate saying stuff about sending illegal immigrants and failed asylum seekers back home. The second story is about a Labour party pollster who tweeted sarcastic comments about Labour voters who express concerns about immigration levels.

Generally when someone says they 'couldn't give a toss' about something, you can safely bet more than 50p and a cake that it's the most important thing ever to them. So when Ed Balls told Sky's Murnaghan programme today that he 'couldn't give a toss' about speculation that Ed Miliband might move him, it meant a number of things. The first is, of course, that he could give a toss, but frankly it would be weird if the Shadow Chancellor didn't care whether or not he continued in his job. Anyone answering that question honestly would have to admit that they jolly well do give a toss about whether they're going to lose their job or not.

Vince Cable is surely right in his comments yesterday that the most likely scenario for Britain leaving the EU is if Ed Miliband is Prime Minister after the next election. The theory, that you hear a lot in Westminster, goes like this: Miliband is forced by public opinion into promising a referendum on EU membership, he then becomes Prime Minister and is obliged to hold the vote. But by this time, the Tory opposition is advocating a No vote; arguing that a better deal can be negotiated. The country then votes No and the rest of the EU, for once, accepts the result of the first vote. Many senior pro-European Labour figures feel that this scenario is all too plausible.

Ed Balls knew that his response to George Osborne's Autumn Statement today was going to be difficult. As I blogged this morning, the Shadow Chancellor didn't really have anywhere to go other than complain about the cost of living. This was aggravated by the fact that any Shadow Chancellor's response to any autumn statement is a tough gig as he has no more advance sight of the figures and announcements than anyone else (perhaps George Osborne was just trying to be kind this year by briefing so much out in advance). But Balls' strategy seems to have been the following: 1. Draft some good jokes in advance The jokes were good. If autumn statements were about jokes, Balls would have done pretty well.