Labour party

The recommendations of the Committee on Standards in Public Life's review into party funding are not going to happen. Both the Labour and Tory members of the review have issued notes of dissent to it. Nick Clegg has, on behalf of the government, issued a statement gently rolling the report into the long grass. Interestingly, the Tory party - which was for a while attracted to additional state funding - has now ruled it out completely. Unlike Clegg's statement saying it shouldn't be done while economic times are so tough, the Tory rejection of it is not time limited. One other thing worth noting is that Labour, via Margaret Beckett's dissent, has not set itself against trade union members having to opt in to pay the political levy.

This might seem a very odd question. A pro-EU position is part of the party's internationalist DNA. Listen to any EU-related speech by the likes of Nick Clegg or Paddy Ashdown and heartfelt support for the European project is apparent. The Liberal Democrats have also made a virtue of reining in Tory euroscepticism, for example rejecting a call for repatriation of powers in the Coalition Agreement. The Deputy Prime Minister remains, in private and public, pro-EU. And to many activists and MPs, the party's European stance is what makes it different to the Tories – and is the reason why they are Lib Dems. They see in Tory euroscepticism a boorish Little Englanderness they abhor and find out of synch with the way of the modern world.

I spent this morning with Ed Miliband on a trip to a factory in Sunderland. Miliband was visiting the Liebherr plant there, which manufactures cranes. The centerpiece of the visit was a Q&A with the workforce. Now, a factory in the North East is not the toughest venue for a Labour leader to play. But Miliband appeared far more comfortable in this setting than he does when giving a traditional speech from behind a podium.   Unlike Miliband’s Q&A at Labour conference, the questions were not softballs or traditional left-wing fare. One set of three questions were: why don’t we close the borders, bring back national service and do more to clamp down on benefit cheats.

You know, having read through Douglas Alexander's Guardian article a couple of times now, and listened to his appearance on the Today programme earlier, I'm still not sure how Labour's new stance towards Europe is particularly different from the official Tory one. The shadow foreign secretary tries to suggest that Dave and George's position is reckless — ‘they seem worryingly complacent about the prospect of a two-speed Europe’ — but he goes on to echo much of it himself. And so, he suggests, ‘We should engage now with the fact that Germany is seeking treaty change and seize this opportunity to safeguard the rights of non-euro members.

David Cameron's statement to the House of Commons on the Cannes summit was dominated by the question of increasing Britain's dues to the IMF. Cameron stressed that his message to the Eurozone countries was "sort yourselves out and then we will help". He also tried to offer reassurance that the IMF would not contribute to any eurozone-specific bailout fund. But after Ed Miliband's response, the Prime Minister tried to counter-attack. He began by saying of the Labour leader's speech, "I don't know who writes this rubbish" which drew one of Ed Balls' infamous calm down gestures. Cameron then offered an aggressive defence of the IMF, calling it an "organisation that rescued us from Labour in the 1970s".

While the Coalition is split over Europe, Labour does not look like they are in a much better position. Ed Miliband told the BBC that he was in favour of the Euro; Ed Balls would presumably tackle anyone to avoid that becoming the party's policy. Meanwhile Douglas Alexander, Labour's brainy Shadow Foreign Secretary, has yet to make a game-changing intervention. Their predicament is obvious. Should Labour accept the narrative of renegotiation but opt for different areas to opt out of than those favoured by the Tories? Or should they, like William Borroughs, stand astride history and scream "stop", arguing for a pro-European position? Seemingly caught between the two views, the party's criticism of the government is like those two old-age pensioners in Woody Allen's joke.

The games have started a day early, folks. The latest quarterly growth figures are set to be released tomorrow morning, but already Ed Balls is waxing insistent about what they have to be: "Simply to stay on track for the Office for Budget Responsibility’s most recent forecast, already downgraded three times, we will need to see growth in the third quarter of 1.3 per cent. And to reach the OECD’s latest and more pessimistic forecast, we will need to see a figure next week of 0.9 per cent." To be fair — and this is not something you'll read often on Coffee House — the Shadow Chancellor has a point, although he's not making it explicitly. When he says that growth needs to hit 1.

Dave Wooding rightly upbraids one Labour MP, Alex Cunningham, for trying to make political capital out of the fact that MPs on the government benches were not wearing poppies at PMQs yesterday. In another sign of how politicised our symbol of rememberance has become, the Defence Secretary Philip Hammond has written to his Cabinet colleagues providing guidance on when it is appropriate to start wearing a poppy. The note informed ministers that while there was no definitive view on when it was appropriate to start wearing one, that Thursday from noon would be a good time as that would coincide with the launch of the Royal British Legion’s campaign. Obviously, none of this detracts from the remarkable and important work that the Royal British Legion does.