Labour party

Rumours are swirling at this Labour conference that the party leadership is considering offering a referendum on Britain’s relationship with the European Union. If the party did do as Jon Cruddas hinted it should over the weekend in the Telegraph, we at least know how Douglas Alexander would campaign. The shadow foreign secretary told an Open Europe fringe last night that staying in would be in Britain’s interest: ‘We are struggling to sense any growth as it is, and shrinking our market from 500 million to 60 million would not to help. We should be working in the nation’s interest to return to growth.’ Alexander also made clear his regret

The Blairite cuckoos so despised by the trade union bosses started singing this evening. After learning that Unite general secretary Len McCluskey wants to ‘kick the New Labour cuckoos out of our nest’, MPs at the Progress rally in Manchester went on the defensive. As the rally was in the Comedy Store, it was only appropriate that someone turn the infighting between the different wings of the party into a joke. Caroline Flint quipped: ‘Apparently I’m a cuckoo, so I’m going to start by talking about the dodos tonight.’ She paused, and then added: ‘The Liberal Democrats – who did you think I was talking about?’ Ben Bradshaw also received

There’s a great temptation for an opposition leader to give answers praising motherhood and apple pie when taking part in a Q&A with members of the public. Especially when that session marks the start of your party’s conference season and your party has set out very few formal policies so far. But Ed Miliband today, as well as announcing crowd pleasers on energy and pensions, caused a bit of a stir by accepting that a Labour government would not ‘spend another’ £3 billion dismantling the frameworks created by the Government’s Health and Social Care Act. He said: ‘There’s no more important institution that expresses, I think, the real soul of

The announcement by Ed Balls today that Labour would conduct a zero-based spending review is a cute piece of political positioning by the shadow Chancellor. It allows him to sound tough—we’ll look at every piece of public spending and see if it delivers value for money, and is an olive branch to those Blairites who still moan about how the Brown Treasury blocked this idea when Labour were in power. But the weakness with it is that it puts off these decisions until after the next election. Based on conversations with various Tories this morning, they are confident that this will make it easier for them to portray Labour as

Ed Miliband tells the Evening Standard today that Labour will give ‘wholehearted’ backing to gay marriage and says that churches and religious bodies should be allowed to conduct these ceremonies. At the same Labour has let it be known to the Standard that the party is ‘highly likely’ to impose a three-line whip on the gay marriage bill, though it can’t say so for certain until it knows the wording. Same as the Lib Dems, then, but unlike the Tories, who are allowing a free vote. As Mr Miliband says, ‘I think whether you’re gay or straight, you should be able to signify your commitment, your love, with the term

Whisper it sceptically but something interesting may have happened in Scotland yesterday. It might even turn out to be an important something too. Even more remarkably, this was all because of a speech given by Johann Lamont, leader of Labour’s bedraggled Scottish troops. I know, it all sounds too astonishing to be true. Be that as it may, Lamont’s speech in which she argued it’s time for Scotland to cease living on “the never never” and admit there will, probably, soon be a choice between raising taxes and cutting services was a rare move towards reality. Lamont’s address was the kind of thing sarcastic types are supposed to call “brave”

Tim Farron, the Lib Dem president, underlined his popularity with grassroots as he jogged up to the stage at the Independent’s fringe event to the fervent cheers of activists. They were eating out of his hand as he answered questions for an hour with Steve Richards. Farron threw his weight behind Nick Clegg as leader, praising the Deputy Prime Minister’s ability to remain a warm and engaging man in spite of the trials of his job. But he blew pretty cold on his leader’s tuition fee apology, emphasising that it was a ‘totemic’ issue, and arguing that Lib Dems would be wrong to expect this to be a ‘turnaround’ for

Over the past two days, we’ve had polls from four different pollsters, and all of them show big leads for Labour. Yesterday, Populus gave Ed Miliband’s party a 15-point lead — the largest lead the pollster has ever shown for Labour. Today, Ipsos MORI shows Labour ahead by 11 points and TNS BMRB have them up by 12. The latest YouGov tracker gives Labour a nine-point lead, although averaging their polls over the last week makes it more like ten points. The precise margins may be different, but all of these results would — if replicated in a general election — result in a large Labour majority and hand Ed

I see that Labour is now fifteen points ahead in the latest opinion poll, a Populus poll for the Times. While the Tories have dropped four points on the previous month, it still seems to me that the bulk of that Labour lead is rightly disaffected Liberal Democrats: they are down to ten per cent. There was a meticulous Peter Kellner piece in Prospect recently which laid out a desperate scenario for the Lib Dems. It certainly looks as if they will be down to the sorts of numbers of MPs they had when Jo Grimond was their leader, and confined to far flung places where they may well still

Ed Miliband has long made responsible capitalism a primary concern of his leadership, and in today’s Telegraph, the Labour leader has a stab at explaining a little more of what he wants it to look like. He has lately taken to pointing out that his speech to his party’s conference last autumn which so confused people with its talk of predators has come good following scandals such as Libor. MPs in his party hope that he will point this out once again when he gives his conference speech in just a few weeks’ time. But enlarging on this theme now, he tells Charles Moore this: ‘But I believe capitalism is the least

What more does Ed Miliband need to do to be taken seriously as the next Prime Minister of Britain? He has been ahead in the polls since the start of last year, and the bookies favourite for longer. A geek? Maybe, but one who has a personal approval rating higher than David Cameron. A leftie? Certainly, and that’s why the orphaned Lib Dem voters feel so at home with him. But his real secret is that no one has the faintest idea what Labour, if elected, would do. We may well be entering the Age of Ed and the terrifying thing is that no one, not even the party leader

It’s fun isn’t it, all this speculation about a leadership challenge to David Cameron? It was obvious really in the run-up to party conference season. We all needed a new narrative. Last year we enjoyed giving Ed Miliband a good kicking and his ‘anti-business’ conference speech played into the hands of his critics. The infantile booing of Tony Blair’s name by delegates made it look like the party was determined to make itself unelectable. But the reality now – and there are plenty on the left as well as the right who still find this a scary prospect – is that Ed Miliband is the man most likely to be

Ed Balls has today made his very own full, open and comprehensive offer to the Liberal Democrats – or, rather, to Vince Cable. The shadow chancellor said he could work very well with Vince (but, pointedly, not Nick Clegg). ‘I wish George Osborne would see Vince Cable as a man to do business with and listen to, rather than telling the newspapers he is putting his allies in [to the Business department] to try and surround him and hold him back. Vince should be listened to on banking reform and on the economy. I could work with Vince. I would like the Liberal Democrats to say right now that this coalition

The biggest winner of the coalition spat over Lords reform and boundaries is, undoubtedly, Ed Miliband. The electoral hill he has to climb to be Prime Minister has just been reduced in size significantly by the fact that the next election is likely to be fought on the existing boundaries. A lead over the Tories of just three per cent would deliver him a majority. In quite a turn-around from last year, Miliband will go to his party conference as the most secure of the three leaders. But Miliband will soon face a problem, albeit a high quality one. At some point in the not too distant future, the media