David Blackburn

Following this morning’s car crash radio interview, this is how Chris Bryant tried to win over the audience at the start of his speech on immigration to the IPPR... Come back Les Dawson, all is forgiven. PS: The full speech is here. The Telegraph's Matt Holehouse has compared the pre-briefing and the delivered speech. As expected, the sections about Tesco and Next have been substantially rewritten. Yet to no avail; the damage has been done. Will Bryant survive Ed Miliband's reshuffle?

Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary, has given an interview to the Guardian which has excited the Tories. Tory chairman Grant Shapps has said: 'This shows that even senior members of Labour's top team think Ed Miliband doesn't have what it takes to stand up for hardworking people.' It’s a familiar refrain; but for once the spin rings fairly true. Here’s the crucial passage from Decca Aitkenhead’s piece: '...when I ask if he's worried by how long Labour is taking to come out with a set of flagship policies that explain what they stand for, he agrees. "Definitely. I think there's definitely a need to shout louder, and speak in a way that captures how people are thinking and feeling. There's definitely a need to put our cards on the table.

Matt Hancock is both a competent economist (read his account of the Great Recession) and a keen political strategist. Where possible he has used his position as minister for skills to position the coalition on the compassionate side of the employment argument; for example, with his considered support for the minimum wage. Yesterday, in an article for ConservativeHome, he pre-empted Labour’s attempt to shift economic focus to the cost of living, now that hopes of a recovery are building. He made two basic points: 1). Labour’s record on the cost of living is abysmal – wages did not keep pace with growth during the boom. He says that gross disposable income fell by 1.1 per cent per head between 2003-08.

‘We are going to see how thick their rectory walls are, whether they like the flaring at the end of the drive!’ Said Michael Fallon in jest at the expense of supporters of fracking in the Home Counties. As it happens, our very own Charles Moore lives in a rectory in East Sussex. He wrote this in the Spectator a few weeks back: ‘Another great advance for the environment is shale gas, though for some reason Greens do not see it that way. It will make us — and has already made America — far less dependent on high carbon-emitting sources of energy. It is lucky for those trying to extract it in this country that it is in places like Ellesmere Port and Blackpool where there are not many spoilt, rich people to complain about damage to the landscape.

It’s a good time to be a Tory in Westminster at present. Labour is under pressure. The backbench dissenters have been quietened. Aides, hacks and spinners exude an air of confidence when you meet them in SW1’s watering holes. Even Boris Johnson reckons that David Cameron could yet pull it off in 2015. Speaking of which, the party has captured the services of Jim Messina, a strategist who has worked with Barack Obama. He will whip CCHQ’s mercurial digital assets into shape and help to sell the government's economic record. Aside from enjoying the benefit of Messina’s gifts, this is a PR coup for the ‘nasty party’. Observe the reaction of certain Labour figures: Jim Messina either doesn't know or doesn't care what a malignant thing the Tory party is.

First the white vans, now the spot checks – Nigel Farage is being given fresh voice by the Home Office’s attempts to tackle illegal immigration. He has said of the spot checks: ‘Spot checks and being demanded to show your papers by officialdom are not the British way of doing things. Yes of course we want to deal with illegal immigration but what’s the point of rounding people up at railway stations if at the same time they are still flooding in at Dover and the other nearly 100 ports in this country. I’m astonished that the Home Office has become so politicised…before long they will be live video-streaming of these arrests. I don’t like it. It really is not the way we’ve ever behaved or operated as a country.

George Mudie is the Labour Party’s answer to Marvin the Paranoid Android. He gave an interview to The World At One earlier today which was so morose in tone that I think he must, as a matter of urgency, have a meal at the Restaurant At the End of Universe. Yet, through the fog of his despair, Mudie (a seasoned agitator of the Blair and Brown era) shot some cruel barbs at Ed Miliband. Words like ‘confused’ and ‘hesitant’ dotted his spiel, together with rambling rhetorical questions like: ‘Do you know, ‘cos I don’t, our position on welfare, do you know our position on education, do you know our genuine position on how we’d run the health service?