Labour party

Easy-peasy at PMQs today. All Ed Miliband had to do was slice open the Coalition's wounds on Europe and dibble his claws in the spouts of blood. But his attack had no sense of bite or surprise. And his phraseology was lumpen. He used all six questions gently stroking the issue of Europe rather than driving a nail through it.  He asked about growth. He asked about the '22 committee. He asked about Nick Clegg's "smash-and-grab" phrase to describe the repatriation of powers. He asked about the social chapter. He asked about everything he could think of, and it was clear he couldn’t think of the right thing to ask. At the climax he sounded like a nursery-assistant scolding Cameron for "pleading not leading" on Europe. Desperately flaccid oratory.

One of the striking things about politics at the moment is that Ed Miliband is proving adept at spotting issues that are going to become big — think the squeezed middle, energy prices — but is failing to drive home this advantage. There’s scant evidence that, for instance, the voters regard Miliband as the solution to the problem of rising energy bills. I suspect that the coalition’s plans to make it easier for people to switch tariff and supplier will cut through with the public more than Miliband’s speeches on the issue. In part, this is the natural advantage of incumbency — governments can actually do things. But the challenge for Miliband’s operation is to make him appear a more effectual figure.

A few months ago I hosted a debate at my think tank with one of the key Tahrir Square leaders. After his talk about Egypt, he warned the audience: the protests that toppled Hosni Mubarak were not just an Egyptian or Middle Eastern phenomena; it could – and, he said, would – spread to the West. For the youth of today, he argued, feel disempowered, empoverished and betrayed. As protests spread from New York to London and other European capitals, it seems that Egyptian protester may have been right. Today's efforts to occupy the London stock exchange failed but protesters remain on the grounds of St Paul's Cathedral. Whatever happens in the next days, protests like these are likely to appear, disappear and appear again.

It is as you'd think: a sea of news coverage and commentary about Liam Fox's departure. Some of its currents are merciless, such as the Mirror's front cover. Some are more circumspect, such as an excellent pair of articles by The Spectator's own Matthew Parris (£) and Charles Moore. But, on the whole, there is a strange absence of finality about this story. A Defence Secretary has resigned – and rightly so, I think – but we still cannot be completely sure why. Maybe it is just the "appearance of impropreity," as Philip Stephens puts it, that killed this Fox. Or maybe there is something more poisonous waiting to emerge in the next few days. The dots are still being connected, the knots of Adam Werritty's business dealings still being untangled.

So, CoffeeHousers, are Eds Balls and Miliband a gruesome twosome or the most sparkling partnership since Torvill and Dean? I ask only because they're really pushing the double-act shtick today. There's their first-ever joint interview in the Evening Standard, for instance, in which they reminisce about the Shadow Chancellor's 30th Birthday party, among other things. And then there was their joint appearance to officially launch Labour's 'plan for growth' campaign this afternoon. They were talking policy, but there was also a strong emphasis on their personal relationship: eye contact, anecdotes, that sort of thing. Blair and Brown we are not, they seemed to be saying. As for the policy, if you heard Ed Balls' speech to the Labour party conference, then you've heard it before.

As William Hague found before last year’s election, getting your voice heard on foreign policy is difficult for an Opposition. You are, at best, reduced to providing commentary to on-going events, vying not with the government for access to the media but with an array of better-informed foreign policy experts. Having a distinctive take on the changes in the world and practical ideas for how to affect change is harder still. You don’t have a 1,500-person strong Foreign Office.   For Labour, there is a different set of problems. Does the party opt for Blairite interventionism, tempered by the fiscal and political realities? If so, what’s the difference to what David Cameron is doing?