Labour party

Danny Finkelstein has written an interesting post objecting to Channel 4 referring to the ‘Conservative-led coalition’ last night. Finkelstein’s objection, and a valid one to my mind, is that ‘Conservative-led’ makes a judgment about the nature of the coalition. Of course, this whole spat has been set off by a clever letter from Ed Miliband’s communications director Tom Baldwin to broadcasters objecting to their use of the word ‘coalition’ to describe the government on the grounds that it implies that the government is a collaborative enterprise. I suspect that this whole row will rumble on for a while yet. It is tempting to dismiss the whole thing as absurd, as only of interest to a few journalists and spin doctors.

We already knew Ed Balls was behind Gordon Brown’s economic policy. He devised the policy on spending that left Britain with the worst deficit heading into the crisis, and wrote the bank regulations that his colleague Douglas Alexander attacked earlier today.   What we have discovered today, from Balls’ first foray into economic policy as Shadow Chancellor, is that he was also behind the old Brown ploy of twisted facts and absurd assertions.   First, he claimed the public finances are better than the Treasury forecast. Yet the independent Office for Budget Responsibility found that the structural deficit – the hole we have to fix - was worse than Labour admitted.

After the gales of recent weeks, the past few days must have been relatively blissful for the Lib Dems. No fake constituents with hidden dictaphones. No massive student protests. No especial focus on their opinion poll ratings. But, instead, a mephitic heap of problems, or at least embarrassments, for Labour and the Tories. Warsi, Johnson, Coulson, even EMAs – Clegg & Co. have been spared the worst of it. Which isn't to say that the Lib Dems will be unaffected by recent events. For instance, as Paul Goodman suggests, Andy Coulson's departure unsettles the delicate balance of the coalition – and that will always have ramifications, however minute, for the yellow half of it. Yet it's the rise of Balls that may prove more significant for the Lib Dems.

Of the two resignations of the past 24 hours, it is Alan Johnson’s that will change the contours of politics. The appointment of Ed Balls makes the dividing line on the economy far starker. But the Coulson resignation is still a highly significant moment. Those Tories who worked with Coulson are downcast today and will brook no discussion of what the whole episode says about Cameron’s judgment. But there’s little doubt that the PM has been harmed by this episode. Not in any limb-threatening way but harmed nevertheless. Cameron also needs a find to way to organise his operation to both ensure that there is someone at the table who understands the instincts and aspirations of C1 voters, can firefight stories and fulfill the strategic communication role.

Labour are on the up. They strolled Oldham. They’ve recruited great armies of Clegg’s defectors. And they’d win a majority if a general election were held tomorrow. There’s been a lot of excited talk in Westminster about Tom Baldwin, Labour’s new communications attack-dog, coming in with his fangs bared and sharpening up their tactics. Well, it ain’t working so far, if PMQs is anything to go by. Ed Miliband had his dentures in today. He was humourless, slow to react and sometimes inaudible. His questions didn’t resemble even the most basic PMQs battle-plan, namely, a pre-meditated onslaught culminating in a simple powerful message presented in a memorable one-liner.

Today’s shocking inflation figures have sparked a fascinating debate. I laid out my take earlier, and I thought CoffeeHousers may appreciate a different perspective. Matthew Hancock MP is a member of the Public Accounts Committee, former economist at the Bank of England and former chief of staff to George Osborne. Fraser Nelson. Last week, growth. This week, inflation. Ed Miliband is complaining about both. But the trouble is: the two can’t be taken in isolation. For the main weapon against inflation is for the Bank of England to raise interest rates. Yet the main weapon to support growth is for the Bank of England to keep interest rates lower for longer. You can’t credibly complain about both.

The man known to the Cameroons as ‘The Master’ casts a long shadow. David Cameron has re-launched his public service reform agenda and there was more of a whiff of Blair in the air. His speech was understated. He eschewed references to radicalism and appealed to continuity instead. The favoured phrase of the moment is ‘evolution not revolution’, and Cameron traced the lineage of his reforms to those of the thwarted Blair administration (and the market reforms of the Thatcher and Major years). He was so deep in New Labour’s intellectual territory that he was at pains to stress that the ‘spending taps have not been turned off’.

Ed Miliband's leadership may be young, but his trickery on the public finances is already well worn. We got it all in his interview with Andrew Marr earlier – and then some. There was the claim that Labour "paid down the debt" (that I dealt with here). There was the claim that Labour's spending was responsible (my response here). And there was a straight-up lie about Miliband's forecast for a double-dip. So far, so Brown. What caught my ear, though, was this exchange: Andrew Marr: I mean Tony Blair said in his memoir that by 2005, he was worried that the party was spending too much. And Alistair Darling said actually it was about 2007, he was worried that the party had been spending too much - before the crash happened.