David Blackburn

There was much excitement on Tuesday night when Labour's Pat McFadden, a former business and employment minister, appeared on Newsnight and said: 'I want to see a Labour Party that takes wealth creation every bit as seriously as its fair distribution. I’m all for justice and fairness in the work place. But you have got to create wealth too.' Tory spinners set to work. ‘Miliband needs to show that wealth creation matters,’ they said. ‘Even his supporters are critical.’ Tory spinners would say that, wouldn’t they? McFadden was merely one disgruntled voice (and with some form). But the chorus of concern has built over the last 24 hours; encouraged, no doubt, by the improving inflation, employment and wage numbers.

Despite the stream of very good economic news (as described by Fraser and James), you won’t catch ministers saying that the crisis in living standards is ‘over’ because there is plenty of evidence to the contrary. The Trussell Trust, the Christian charity, has today published new statistics on food bank use. The headline figure is shocking: “913,138 people received three days’ emergency food from Trussell Trust foodbanks in 2013-14 compared to 346,992 in 2012-13”. The trust says that this is merely ‘the tip of the iceberg’ because the figures do not account for other foodbank providers. There is also, the trust says, no way of estimating how many people are too ashamed to use a foodbank and prefer to go hungry instead.

This morning's edition of The Times reported (£) that Nigel Farage could face a probe into claims, apparently lodged by a former UKIP official, that nearly £60,000 of ‘missing’ European Union funds have been paid into his personal bank account. Mr Farage denies the allegations in strong terms and has invited EU officials to examine his expenses. This is not the first time that UKIP has faced allegations about fiddled expenses. Yet none of the mud has stuck. There are two reasons for this: nothing has been proved and few people appear to understand how the European parliamentary expenses system works (there is, for example, a less than clear distinction between expenses and allowances).

The Sunday papers resound with the sound of Tory MPs thinking aloud about how to deal with ill-discipline: principally expenses and harassment. On harassment, the Sunday Times reports the 1922 Committee is considering its own regulation plans after deciding that placing the complaints procedure in the hands of whips might lead to scandals being ‘hushed up’ because politics would win out over justice. Committee chairman Graham Brady has said: 'We have taken independent advice and had preliminary conversations with Acas [the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service] about how an appropriate grievance procedure might best be structured.' On expenses, Douglas Carswell and Zac Goldsmith make the case, yet again, for voters to be given powers of recall over MPs.

George Osborne and Ed Balls have gone head-to-head in the media – the former in The Sun on Sunday and the latter in The Sunday Mirror. The two also appeared on the Andrew Marr Show. Neither man said anything new, at least not in terms of the grand narrative, which is scarcely surprising because the electoral cycle is at the stage where new ideas do not have time to gestate. This is especially true of the chancellor. Osborne has been under pressure to raise the threshold at which people pay the 40p rate. Osborne made it very clear to Andrew Marr that the government’s tax threshold reforms had benefited 25 million people; indeed, he spoke of his pride about this reform and reiterated that it suits 40p rate payers as well as low income earners.

There’s been much hullaballoo this afternoon over a Populus poll that shows a Labour lead of one point. The usual caveats apply (it’s just one poll!); but, nevertheless, this sample adds to the sense that Ed Miliband is in difficulty. There is, incidentally, only 419 days to go until election day. If the Populus poll was disappointing, then this projection compiled by Stephen Fisher of Oxford University could have Miliband reaching for the scotch: ‘Forecast Election Day Seats: Con : 307 Lab : 285 LD  : 31 Con largest party, but short of a majority by 19’ A dismal prospect for Labour; but there are also worries for the Tories because they are not yet benefitting from Miliband’s malaise and the economic recovery.

‘You only offer a referendum if you want to ratify your existing policy,’ a Tory veteran told me this morning while discussing Ed Miliband’s recent referendum announcement. The Tory illustrated his point with reference to the Major government’s row over a proposed referendum on the single currency. He said that the pro-European side of the argument ran from a referendum, fearing that the public would say ‘no’ to EMU. His logic was: there isn’t time to change minds during a referendum campaign, so the public backs the status quo.