Labour party

It’s odd how political leaders often address their parties in the clichéd terms of soap operas’ most tortured romances. Ed Miliband pre-trailed speech to the Labour’s National Policy Forum in Wrexham is replete with protestations of having grown apart and the need to listen and be more open with each other. “We cannot continue as we are,” he implores. But there is some substance to Miliband’s rhetoric of reconnection. He has already announced his intention to appoint his own shadow cabinet, which caused some consternation among Labour’s more reactionary elements.

Ed Miliband is to abolish shadow cabinet elections. Tony Blair, fearful of the reaction of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP), shied away from doing this. But Miliband has decided that it is a necessary move to give him the freedom to craft his own top team and to strike against the old, factional Labour culture. Miliband has asked Tony Lloyd, chair of the PLP, to hold a secret ballot of Labour MPs on the change before parliament goes down for the summer. If they approve, it will then be passed to the NEC with the process ending with a vote at conference. Under Miliband’s proposed new arrangements, the PLP will be represented in shadow cabinet by its elected chair.

When Ed Balls is around, there are no shortages of stories. Balls, as is so often the case, has been the talk of Westminster today. First, there was the chatter generated by the FT’s story that members of the shadow Cabinet were irritated that Balls’ proposed VAT cut hadn’t been run past them. Then, there was Alistair Darling strikingly failing to endorse Balls’ VAT cut on the Daily Politics and to round it all off the shadow Chancellor was leading for Labour in its opposition day debate on the economy. The Tories are convinced that Balls’ relations with his fellow shadow Cabinet members is a weak spot for Labour. Indeed, many of the 13 interventions that Tory MPs made on Balls today were on this point.

Quite some claim from Ed Balls, writing in the Sunday Mirror today. "Let's be clear what George Osborne's game is," he blusters, "he's trying to pick a fight about pensions, provoke strikes and persuade the public to blame the stalling economy on the unions." And it is a charge that Andy Burnham repeated on Dermot Murnaghan's Sky show earlier. I was on live-tweeting duty, and lost count of how many times the shadow education secretary used phrases such as "provocation," "confrontation," "playing politics," and "back to the 1980s." This, clearly, is an attack that Labour are determined to push as relentlessly as possible. George Osborne is politicking, they are saying, at the nation's expense. It is, at the very least, an intriguing gambit on Labour's part.

It has been a turbulent, ol' week for Ed Miliband — all the way from those Ed Balls files, through his most substantial speech so far, to that bruising Twitter appearance. By way of putting a full-stop to it all, here's an interview that our deputy editor, Mary Wakefield, conducted with him in 2007. This is MiliMinor, aged 37, and relatively carefree:  The charm of Ed Miliband, Mary Wakefield, The Spectator, 2 June 2007 Sitting opposite Ed Miliband MP in a large and airy office, the sort of office that befits the Minister for the Third Sector, I suddenly have the surreal impression that I’m at the doctor’s. It’s the medicinal green of the carpet but, more than that, it’s Ed’s demeanour.

"First he denies his own policy, then he tries insults." So said Ed Miliband of David Cameron's performance in PMQs today. But I wonder what he'd say of the hundreds of Twitter users who went straight for the insults in a special Q&A with the Labour leader earlier. Urged on by Guido, plenty deployed the #AskEdM hash-tag to be rather unkind to MiliMinor. Here's a selection of some of the crueller, funnier and less comradely tweets: @MTPT: If a train leaves Paddington at 1136, carrying 200 commuters, what time will the RMT bring it to a standstill? @FelicityParkes: Where did Ed Balls touch you? Show us on the doll. @MShapland: hows your brother @Charlesm186: how many knives did you put in Tony Blair's back? @alexmassie: Was Brutus an honourable man? Discuss.

David Miliband is considering a return to frontline British politics. At least that is what Andrew Grice has heard. He reports: ‘David Miliband is considering a surprise comeback to frontline politics in an attempt to end speculation about a continuing rift with his brother Ed. Friends of the former Foreign Secretary said yesterday that his joining the Shadow Cabinet was a "live issue" in his circle of political allies. "There is a debate going on. Some people are arguing that it would be better to be a team player than look as though he is sulking on the sidelines," said one source.’ Better for whom, I wonder?

Thematically speaking, there wasn't too much in Ed Miliband's speech that we haven't heard before. The middle is still squeezed, the Tories are still undermining the "Promise of Britain", the bankers are still taking us for fools, and communities still need to be rebuilt. Even his remarks about benefit dependency bear comparion to those he made in February. But there was a difference here, and that was his punchiness. The Labour leader may not be the most freewheelin' orator in town, but the text he delivered was less wonky than usual, more coherent and spikier. It was even — in parts — memorable. You do wonder whether Miliband has learnt from the Cameroons. Much will be made of how his speech relied on the Blue Labour stylings of Maurice Glasman.