Uk politics

Wednesday

Peter Hoskin

Balls spills the beans

From our UK edition

File David Miliband's decision not to stand in the shadow Cabinet elections in the folder marked "Worst kept secrets in Westminster". Here's what Ed Balls has just told ITV: "I don't think David Miliband is leaving because of reasons of politics or ideology or policy. I don't think this is a political divide, I think this it's a personal decision. He's decided, and it seems he's decided in the last few days if he has, that for personal reasons he doesn't want to serve with his brother. I understand that because it must have been incredibly difficult to have lost to your brother in that way ... If as a brother you've decided that it's too difficult I think people would understand that. I don't think it's fair to find some big political split or divide here.

David Blackburn

Ed Balls saves the pitch till last

From our UK edition

Predictable lines from Ed Balls this afternoon. ‘DIY free schools’ are iniquitous; Michael Gove is like the child snatcher in Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang. Naturally, he made a pitch for the shadow chancellorship. Nick Clegg was his target and his pitch was avowedly left-wing: 'It was Nick Clegg: the man whose own election leaflets said ’Vote Liberal Democrat or you’ll get a Tory government, who said ‘stop the Tory VAT bombshell, who said spending cuts now would be ‘reckless’ and put jobs and the recovery at risk.

David Blackburn

David Davis offers his counsel in good faith

From our UK edition

From his roost high on the backbenches, David Davis commands a luminescent eminence that he would not have had if he were a frontbencher. And as the current guardian of traditional right-wing Toryism, his words are clear against the often muddy context of coalition. Talking to the Mail's Andrew Pierce and Amanda Platell, he offers George Osborne and David Cameron some sagacious advice. He joins the chorus, now stalked by Ed Miliband, which urges the government to articulate its growth and recovery rhetoric. ‘We cannot be defined by a purely cuts agenda. If the only message the public takes away from the events of the next few months is one of retrenchment and loss of services, politically at least, we will have failed.

Fraser Nelson

Plugging the leak

From our UK edition

So did Liam Fox leak the letter? Only if he is suicidal. He's been around long enough (having been a frontbencher from the Major years onwards) to know how the game works. Briefing journalists is one thing, leaking a private letter is utterly counterproductive. It will make it harder for him to get the settlement he wants, and it will damage him by making him look as if he were responsible for it. I gather that the MoD is in a state of terror right now, with phone records and emails being trawled to find the guilty party. And whoever did this has such a crude understanding of media spin that they might well have been stupid enough to be caught. But in the history of Whitehall leak inquiries, the guilty party has never been discovered.

Peter Hoskin

Liam Fox does a David Miliband

From our UK edition

At least the political fates have a sense of humour. No sooner had David Miliband's frustration screamed into view last night, than the Tories were hit by a story that was similar in several regards: the leaked Liam Fox letter, expressing his anger over spending cuts. Here are a handful of those similarities: 1) Leakage. David Miliband's words for Harriet Harman were meant to be for their ears only, but the TV cameras picked them up. Similarly, Fox's letter was meant to be between him and the PM – but now it's splashed across the front page of the Telegraph. The only difference is that the Fox letter has been put out by someone in Whitehall, a politically interested actor.

Tuesday

Peter Hoskin

David Miliband torpedos his brother’s big speech

From our UK edition

Make no mistake: David Miliband has handled himself with a fair amount of dignity over the past few days. But now some of his frustration has simmered to the surface. ITV news cameras were trained on him earlier, and caught him leaning towards Harriet Harman as she applauded his brother's claim that the Iraq War was "wrong" (see from two minutes into this video). According to the lipreaders, he says to her: "Why are clapping? You voted for it." To which she replies, "I'm clapping because he's leader and I'm supporting him." The elder Miliband does not look impressed. To be honest – and although I didn't support the Iraq War myself – I feel some sympathy for his position here.

David Blackburn

Miliband goes Cameron-lite

From our UK edition

Well, it turns out that ‘Red Ed’ is really a social conservative. As both Pete and James say, his speech contained notable sallies into Cameroon territory – community and family. He didn’t follow Cameron’s trail to the metre, but fell into many of the same ditches. Two things struck me: 1). Ever the opportunist, Miliband sees that there is the kernel of a good idea at the root of the ‘Big Society’ and tried to exploit Cameron’s inability to present it. Miliband’s gave us the ‘Good Society’, a clear though sanctimonious slogan for community renewal. However, he, like Cameron, can’t define what he means by community. He talked about post offices, high streets and, of course, the local pub.

James Forsyth

Miliband produces the bare minimum, but don’t underestimate him

From our UK edition

Ed Miliband did what he needed to do. In his speech he needed to show that he was not some demented left-winger, that he was not a tool of the unions and that he appreciates the need for cuts. He did the first bit with his tone. It is very hard to depict someone as dangerously left-wing when they appear thoroughly reasonable. The union test he got through with the line that no one in the Labour party should have any ‘truck with overblown rhetoric about waves of irresponsible strikes.’ As one Tory said to me last week, attacking him over being in hock to the unions was never going to be effective for long as it is so easy for him to distance himself from them.

Peter Hoskin

Ed Miliband’s speech: neither here nor there

From our UK edition

Where are Ed Miliband's editors? If twenty minutes had been lopped off that speech, then it might have been quite a decent little number. As it was, it dwelt too long on the past at the beginning; it hit all of its high notes in the middle; and sagged again during an protracted conclusion. Maybe if David Miliband doesn't stand for the shadow cabinet, he might be persuaded to stick around and at least fine-tune his brother's speeches. As for what we learnt about the MiliE leadership, most of it was presentational. The phrase "new generation" popped up with machine gun regularity, as did words like "optimism" and "change". This was all about setting himself apart from New Labour – but not too much.

Peter Hoskin

Ed Miliband’s speech: live blog

From our UK edition

1522, PH: We'll leave it there. More reaction on Coffee House shortly. 1520, PH: And there's the closing summary. He manages to squeeze "new generation" and "optimists" in several times. Then, a standing ovation, natch. 1519, PH: Weird blip as Miliband says that he wants to take on "David ... Cameron". Did he have another rival called "David" in mind? 1518, PH: A bit of life to the speech now, as Miliband takes on the Red Ed label. "Come of it," he swipes, "let's debate the issues that matter to Britain." 1518, FN: A huge sigh of relief in Tory HQ, I suspect, as he says he supports Ken Clarke's plans to cut prison numbers. "I'm not going to say he's soft on crime". Blair, I suspect, certainly would do.

Peter Hoskin

Behind the times

From our UK edition

Anyone who isn't interested in political party websites look away now. For both of you remaining, then it's worth adding to Ben Brogan's observation about Labour's site. The photograph of Ed Miliband that greets you upon clicking here isn't the best, he notes (perhaps MiliE should have used this image instead). But there's more: at time of writing, the pages for the leadership election are still available, and Harriet Harman is still logged as the leader of the Labour party. These are only small faults, sure. No doubt it will all be fixed in the next couple of days.

David Blackburn

The eagle has landed

From our UK edition

Shades of Jack Higgins in Whitehall this morning: the Prime Minister is convening the furtive sounding National Security Council, which will be presented with initial drafts of strategic defence review. As Richard Norton-Taylor puts it, the government has the opportunity to be radical and make this a ‘horse versus tank moment’, which is ironic given that the tank is poised to pass into obsolescence. In truth, the drama is some way off; the government has delayed decisions rather than take them. The nuclear deterrent is not part of the review – the politics and economics of Trident’s replacement proving too contentious for the precious coalition.

David Blackburn

Opportunistic Ed stuttering for an authentic voice

From our UK edition

The fightback begins here. To that end, Ed Miliband is being offered plenty of advice by the swords around his throne. The Mirror trails his speech, pleased that it will be honest about Labour’s failings and inaugurate Labour’s ‘golden generation’. Tom Harris hopes that Miliband will remember that New Labour was successful because it was the party of aspiration, not just the dispossessed. Steve Richards wants Miliband to reach for Middle England by talking with an authentic voice, a simple contrivance that worked miracles for Tony Blair. However, we can add schizophrenia to psychodrama among Miliband’s afflictions. He was the author of a manifesto he immediately disowned, whilst refusing to concede that he bore responsibility for defeat.

Monday

David Blackburn

Miliband hampered by Labour’s ongoing vacuum

From our UK edition

Time is against Ed Miliband: there is a void where there should be a new shadow chancellor. The party leadership cannot refine its arguments ahead of next month's spending review, upon which the immediate success of Miliband's regime depends. A further problem is that all of Labour’s arguments are made in the past tense. The previous government’s economic record is defended with evangelical fervour; but each speaker is struck dumb when asked about specific future savings and plans. Alistair Darling closed his front-bench career this afternoon by saying, ‘The deficit is the result of the banking crisis – and the economic crisis that followed it. We had to take that action.

James Forsyth

Where does Miliband go now?

From our UK edition

How to reduce the deficit is the ground on which the Tories want to take on Ed Miliband. The whole Tory war machine has been mobilised to try and use today’s IMF report which calls the Osborne deficit reduction plan ‘appropriately ambitious’ to flush out Ed Miliband’s position on the deficit. The deficit is the ground on which Labour would least like to fight right now They know that, in the words of one former Cabinet minister, ‘that his approach to the deficit is what will defined Ed politically.’ But it is hard to make this choice when you don’t know who your shadow Chancellor is and what’s in the comprehensive spending review.

Peter Hoskin

The IMF delivers a boost for George Osborne

From our UK edition

The proclamations of economists and economic bodies shouldn't be taken as the be-all-and-end-all of fiscal policy – for every one claiming that a decision is right, you can find another insisting that it is wrong. But the coalition will still be pleased by the influential International Monetary Fund's latest report, here. It begins: "The UK economy is on the mend. Economic recovery is underway, unemployment has stabilized, and financial sector health has improved. The government’s strong and credible multi-year fiscal deficit reduction plan is essential to ensure debt sustainability. The plan greatly reduces the risk of a costly loss of confidence in public finances and supports a balanced recovery.

Peter Hoskin

The speech that David Miliband would have given on Saturday?

From our UK edition

Caveats about positioning after the event, of course, but Andrew Pierce's account of the speech that David Miliband would have given on Saturday is still worth noting down: "You could have heard a pin drop in the conference hall when the new Labour leader delivered his acceptance speech. Far from being triumphalist, he issued a stark and unwelcome warning that shocked the Party: it had to change, or lose the next election. Only minutes after the applause had died down on Gordon Brown’s valedictory address, his successor savaged Brown’s record as Chancellor and Prime Minister. He mocked the claim that Labour had ended the cycle of boom and bust.

Fraser Nelson

The penny drops

From our UK edition

David Miliband is a tease. The speech he just gave was one of his best: it was self-deprecating, had gravitas, humour, and he spoke down to the Tories, telling William Hague what statesmanship was about. A monstrous conceit, CoffeeHousers may argue, but a Labour leader needs a bit of that; to make out that he's the real leader-in-waiting, up against lightweights. There was his trademark little bit of grit in the speech: he praised the troops, the Afghan mission and criticised Cameron for reducing British diplomacy to trade missions (Con Coughlin made the same point in a Spectator cover piece recently). My point: that this was a measurably better speech than the one his little brother made on Saturday. And I'll bet it's better than the speech Red Ed will make tomorrow.

Peter Hoskin

The defeated brother delivers a winning speech

From our UK edition

David Miliband's address to the Labour conference ended as it began: with a  standing ovation. Sentimentality and sympathy, perhaps – but it was also deserved. This was a speech that his younger sibling will be hard pressed to match tomorrow. Indeed, I doubt even MiliD has matched it himself before now It began, of course, with an attempt to massage out the tensions of the past few days. There were some gags about how Miliband had draft speeches for Saturday and Tuesday on his computer - "so I've got a couple of speeches to draw on." And he implored Labour to unite behind his brother – "we have a great new leader and we've got to get behind him." He added, by way of a fraternal backslap, "I'm incredibly proud of my brother". So far, so smooth.

David Blackburn

Oh brother, where art thou?

From our UK edition

All eyes have turned to the future Labour front bench, particularly the identity of George Osborne’s shadow. Ed Balls has made his most obvious pitch yet. In a piece for the Guardian, bluntly titled ‘Now let’s offer a real choice – and nail the Tory lie on cuts', he writes: ‘Being a united party is not enough. We must also win the argument. If we do not give people a positive reason to vote Labour, rather than just a temporary outlet for their protest, we will not persuade them to stick with us come the election.   First, on the economy – of course we will need tough choices to get the deficit down.