Labour party

Last week's Lib Dem conference dealt with a promise Nick Clegg wished he had never made. This week's Labour conference is in part about promises Ed Miliband and Ed Balls won't make at all, or at least not for a few years. The Shadow Chancellor was cagey when he appeared on BBC Breakfast this morning, saying 'I can make no commitment now to reverse any of those cuts or the tax rises, because we don't know what the economy's going to be like in two months' time let alone in two years' time when the election comes'.

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 enthusiastic cheers from the audience when he said: 'We don't need to kick anyone out of this party. We don't need to silence anybody.

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 country than the NHS, because I think it expresses a whole set of values which I think the British people share in common.

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 being incapable of making tough decisions on spending.

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 “marriage”'.

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" or "bold". That is, mad. Actually, it was quite brave not least because Lamont must have known that Tories would probably praise what she had to say.

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 the party's fortunes as reneging on the pledge had damaged their standing for a 'generation'.

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 Miliband the keys to 10 Downing Street. But while voters say they would vote for Miliband's party, they still don't seem enthusiastic about making him Prime Minister.

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 believe that Asquith is the leader. Good, frankly. It certainly wouldn’t surprise me if on share of the vote they were eclipsed next time by UKIP.

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 worst system we’ve got. I believe in the creativity of Blackberry [picking up his], or whatever. But I want it to be more decent, more humane, more fraternal.

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 himself, seems to know what it will mean. I look at this in my Telegraph column today. Here are my main points. 1. Plenty of Tory MPs are preparing for the age of Ed.

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 the next prime minister. Looking back, the speech looks rather prophetic with its appeal for a shift in the country’s cultural values in favour of 'grafters'.

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 has failed and we're going to change course.' Balls can't really work with anyone (just ask Ed Miliband); and nor is he likely to have to.