Isabel Hardman

A week after uproar in the Commons over the vote on the European Arrest Warrant that was or wasn't a vote, depending on what you fancied believing, Theresa May faced MPs at Home Office questions where she was rather quickly pulled up on that debacle. Shadow Home Office minister David Hanson asked why the House of Lords did get a vote on the European Arrest Warrant when MPs were denied the opportunity last week.

Mainstream politicians still aren't sure how to talk about Ukip. There's the question of whether the party's European election and by-election successes will power them to a good result at the 2015 election, or whether this protest movement will fade a little by the time voters start thinking about the sort of government they like. There's the question of whether Ukip is borrowing members of each mainstream party's 'core vote', or whether neither the Tories nor Labour should consider voters 'theirs' any more anyway. And then there's the question of how to talk about Ukip. Most senior politicians are agreed that you can't call people who vote for Ukip fruitcakes or closet racists. But the question still lingers of how to approach the Ukip leadership.

The Conservatives have released a rather silly leaflet for the Rochester by-election contrasting Mark Reckless with their candidate Kelly Tolhurst. As if to highlight that it might be a silly leaflet, it features the phrase 'the straight choice', which some thought had gone out of fashion in 1983. Then it goes through Tolhurst's local credentials, followed by Reckless's Establishment background. You can see what they're trying to do here, which is to undermine Ukip's anti-Establishment pitch. That's why the Conservatives held a postal primary to select their new candidate once Reckless had defected.

Earlier today, Ukip leader Nigel Farage sent what appeared to be a typewritten letter to Ed Miliband challenging him to a head-to-head debate. The Labour leader has now used a more modern form of communication to respond. And, funnily enough, it's a no: .@Nigel_Farage Bring it on. I look forward to a debate with you, @David_Cameron and @Nick_Clegg in the election campaign. — Ed Miliband (@Ed_Miliband) November 13, 2014 Actually what Miliband would dislike far more than an hour fighting Farage on television (which didn't work out all that well for Nick Clegg when he did it before the European elections), would be any televised debate involving the Green Party, who are currently excluded.

Ed Miliband has a speech billed as his make-or-break fightback proof-I'd-make-a-great-PM tomorrow morning. In truth, it's rarely right to bill one political speech as The fightback, at least in voters' minds, but the Labour leader does need to show that he hasn't been crushed by the past few weeks - and reassure his party sufficiently for them to fight with him. His speech will be followed by 'interventions' from Ed Balls, Yvette Cooper, Chuka Umunna and Tristram Hunt in the next few days.

I spent an hour today following David Cameron around a school in Rochester as part of his latest campaign visit in the by-election. The school, Strood Academy, was candidate Kelly Tolhurst's alma mater, and has the benefit of being in a snazzy building, which looks nice for photos. The children in the school were obviously thrilled that the Prime Minister was there: they didn't know until he appeared on the premises and as he walked into a citizenship class, all the students' eyes widened with surprise. He was mobbed as he walked through the building, with children turning to each other shouting 'I shook his hand! I've got to tell my mum this!' This was all very nice, but there is one slightly odd detail about this by-election visit.

So Labour lost its vote delaying the vote on the European Arrest Warrant that wasn't technically a vote on that measure anyway. The first vote, that the question not be put today so that Parliament could have a full debate and vote another day, was lost, with 272 MPs voting 'no' with the government and 229 voting with Labour. There had been a big debate on the Tory backbenches about the best tactic, with MPs angry about the government's behaviour split over whether to vote with Labour or abstain. This meant that Labour lost the vote.