Labour party

David Cameron was on punchy form at PMQs today. He jibed that in Harriet Harman’s case the Budget Red Book should be called ‘the unread book’ and called Labour backbenchers ‘dunces’ who didn’t know what the last government was planning. The Cameron Harman exchange was interesting. Harman had come armed with some classic follow-up questions using the details in the Red Book. Cameron didn’t want to engage on the detail, suggesting that Harman might have had a point. But his ability to attack Labour for having got the country into this mess allowed him to win the exchange on points quite comfortably. Bob Russell, a Lib Dem MP who said he may oppose the Budget yesterday, roared out three nil after Harman’s first three questions.

It's days like this when you realise just how stuck Labour are in a Brownite groove.  Everywhere you turn, there's some leadership candidate or other attacking the government for choosing to cut public spending this year.  Ed Miliband claims that the Lib Dems have been "completely macho … completely cavalier" about cuts.  Andy Burnham says that this year could "damage us in the long run".  And even those who aren't chasing the leadership are getting in on the act: Alistair Darling writes that the coalition has "a fiscal policy that undermines fragile growth". So we already know what Labour's broad response to this week's Budget will look like.  But it got me a-wondering: what will their response to next year's Budget be?

I doubt David Cameron will have many better days in government than this. Considering the government cancelled a hospital project yesterday, today has passed as one long photo-op, free of incident. It began with Theresa May banning a radical Islamist cleric, Zakir Naik, displaying a resolve that eluded her immediate predecessors. The papers were full of Cameron’s ‘coup’ in Brussels yesterday; the only major news story that might have unnerved Cameron was the FT’s research into Tory immigration policy, which the FT calculates will hit growth and raise taxes. It was too esoteric to hit the TV screens, so too the cuts in arts funding. It must have been a happy breakfast in No 10 this morning.

I was expecting drama when the Labour leadership circus called at Newsnight yesterday. Alas, the show whimpered and wheezed to a halt. A contest to determine the party’s future continues to gaze into the past. Assessing failure is essential to renewal, but the candidates are yet to offer anything substantively new.   Ed Balls and David Miliband shared one telling exchange. Balls has presented himself as the traditional candidate, and he would have you believe he speaks the language of Mrs Duffy. Gordon Brown’s hideous solecism in Rochdale revealed that he and his government were out of touch on issues such as housing and immigration. David Miliband is the centrist candidate and he dissociates himself from Balls and Duffy-speak.

With ill-repressed horror, James Macintyre reports that the remnants of New Labour fear that Diane Abbott might win the Labour leadership, courtesy of the preferential vote. Mildly amusing I suppose. If Ed Balls would be a catastrophe of Footian proportions as leader what would Abbott be? There are no historical parallels.   I can’t see this latter day Rosa Luxemburg enticing Labour members. But if she does, then David Miliband, that auteur of absurdity, is to blame. Abbott’s weapon is communication. Unlike her four opponents, she doesn’t sound like an under-manager at Furniture Village. She is accessible, particularly on television – and the hopefuls will be up before Paxman tonight.

I had expected Alistair Darling to have slumped off to spend more time with his memoirs after the election, but here he is, fists aloft, fighting the government. About the only member of the Labour front bench effectively doing so. He has a point. The economy is looking better than expected, not worse - as David Cameron has been pretending. Each new forecast for the deficit seems to give a less ghastly picture. British house prices are on the rebound. And when the Office of Budget Responsibility announces its forecasts on Monday, it is likely to give a better picture than that in Darling's budget. Already Darling is telling the Guardian that he wants "an apology" if this is so.

I thought that Ed Balls would be a natural for opposition politics. But I’ve been struck by the naivety of some of his recent interventions – notably the Duffy-wooing immigration proposal. As James has argued, Balls’ plan to limit freedom of movement within the EU ia classic opposition politics. They are eye-catching, populist and but completely unworkable in practice. But Balls isn’t really in opposition yet: the Labour party is caught in a kind of limbo whilst it determines its future, a future that Balls wants to control. Advocating the unimplementable looks conniving rather than statesmanlike, naïve rather than astute.

The list of Special Advisors pay is out. The headline grabbing figures are that Andy Coulson is on £2,500 less than the PM, and that the overall bill is allegedly £1.9m less than Labour’s. Also, George Osborne appointed Rupert Harrison and Eleanor Shawcross to the Council of Economic Affairs, but they will claim no extra salary. And, for those interested, there are 5 SpAd vacancies in government. Still, £4.9m is a lot of money for unaccountable, party officials. Some time ago, I asked if Cameron would govern any differently. Transparency and cost-cutting are welcome, but wearing fewer garments doesn’t change the innards of a government.

Obviously, the Labour party must change and make a clean break with the era of Blair and Brown. I have my doubts if any of these candidates, other than incredible Diane Abbott, can escape the politics that moulded them. None have said anything substantively new. They are not wedded to the past; they pine for it. Today, however, Ed Miliband has suggested that he would break from New Labour. He has written an article for the Mirror, arguing that he would keep the 50 percent tax rate. His analysis is: ‘There is something wrong with a society where nurses earn less in a year than bankers - whose botched deals caused the credit crunch - pay themselves every week.