Uk politics

After all the excitement of Nick vs Nigel and the endless mutterings in the Tory party about uprisings following the European elections, you might be forgiven for thinking that the European elections are the only game in town in May. But there are 4,161 local council seats up for election on the same day - and the main parties are quite keen to make big efforts to secure a good result in those polls. The Conservatives have been holding campaign days in London, where many of the seats up for election are located, and making those local council seats a focus for the parliamentary party, which descends on different areas to canvass and deliver leaflets on set days. The whips hold their campaign days on Tuesdays and take a band of MPs along with them.

After Tim Farron set out a new position for the Lib Dems on the 'bedroom tax' this morning, Labour wants to try to humiliate the party by staging a vote on the policy in the Commons. It was approved long ago, but this lunchtime Labour sources were saying that they would put pressure on the Lib Dems by finding a mechanism to force a vote on the bedroom tax. This is always exciting for the Labour party as they can dig out some lines about flip flops and broken promises, but the chances are that an Opposition Day debate would either be ignored by Lib Dem MPs, or a mollifying amendment tabled by the government which allows the Coalition parties to walk through the same lobbies.

It's no surprise that the Conservatives want to take the credit for the tax cuts in the Budget, or that the Lib Dems are rather peeved about this. The Chancellor will make a speech today in which he describes Britain as 'starting to walk tall in the world' and drive home what he sees as a series of key government achievements on 'reshoring' and the rise in the personal allowance of income tax, which comes into effect this week. Nick Clegg, meanwhile, is giving his monthly press conference where he will argue that the Conservatives are trying to 'steal' his own party's prize ideas. Those two men can tussle about in the Westminster bubble for credit (though to be fair to the Lib Dems, they do seem to be winning the battle).

Ed Miliband tried to reassure his MPs this week that the party just needed to weather a temporary blip. But one question the Labour leader will be (or should be) contemplating which is quite separate from the squally polls is whether his top team can repair increasingly public tensions which are as much about personality as they are about strategy. The Mail on Sunday reports another fissure between Douglas Alexander and Michael Dugher, while Andrew Rawnsley has a useful guide to the major fault lines in the party. This morning on Marr, Douglas Alexander was asked to comment on reports that his party had fired Arnie Graf as community organising election supremo.

Well, Peter and David, John and Bernado, Sean and Sinclair are now married and the happy husbands have the further benefit of the unanimous blessing of our political class. David Cameron said the move sent a message that people were now equal 'whether gay or straight. It says we are a country that will continue to honour its proud traditions of respect, tolerance and equal worth.' For good measure, he added that the law change would encourage young people unsure of their sexuality. Really? You mean a few more teenagers hovering between being gay or straight might go for the gay option on the back of the prospect of a wedding? And that’s a good thing?

Class war. It's not very classy, is it? But it's Labour's big thing at the moment, the class-of-politicians-crisis, which it thinks works well with the other crisis facing hardworking families up and down the country that the party likes to talk about, and allows Ed Miliband to duck awkward things like responding to the Budget. He and his henchmen have spent the past week and a half talking as much about Etonians as they have pensioners. On Tuesday, Rachel Reeves had her go, banging on about rich Tories buying Lamborghinis. Ed Balls was the follow-up act on Wednesday (having already had a first shot last week with his jokes about the PM's friend 'Bingo'). He told the Commons that: 'When the hon.