Ed miliband

Time was when Ed Miliband had plenty to say about François Hollande. When the new French President celebrated his victory in May, the Labour leader praised Hollande for his ‘determination to help create a Europe of growth and jobs, in a way that is responsible and sustainable’. He added: ‘This new leadership is sorely needed as Europe seeks to escape from austerity. And it matters to Britain.’ Then, Miliband was keen to work together with his new friend Hollande. Just a few months down the line, though, Labour has a bit less to say about how the French president is a shining example of the centre-left showing leadership and hope

According to a spuriously scientific study, today is the day when festive excess gets the better of us, with one in two Brits opting to stay on the sofa with the curtains closed fretting about bills and weight gain. So how fortunate it is that Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband have chosen to rouse a hungover nation today with their stirring new year messages. Ed Miliband promises that he will be setting out ‘concrete steps’ on how One Nation Labour will work, citing business, education and welfare as examples. He does add that he doesn’t ‘offer easy answers and I’m not going to offer false promises either’. But it’s difficult

A fascinating PMQs. Labour staged one of the most carefully orchestrated attacks on David Cameron they’ve ever mounted. It was relentless. Ed Miliband kicked off by asking the PM about the six fold rise in food-bank dependency. Cheekily, Cameron praised Miliband for applauding the volunteer spirit. ‘It’s what I call the Big Society.’ Miliband gave him the ‘withering disbelief’ look which he practises in the mirror. He then revealed that two out of every three teachers ‘know a colleague’ who has given food or cash to famished children. Cameron shrugged this aside and replied that he wanted to do the most for the poorest. And when Miliband produced his favourite

Today’s PMQs was visceral stuff. Ed Miliband accused the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of being Bullingdons Boy who were taking decisions about ‘people they’ll never meet, people, people whose lives they’ll never understand.’ Cameron gave as good as he got, attacking Labour as the ‘party of unlimited benefits’ and said that Miliband ‘only stands up for those who claim.’ These exchanges over the decision to limit the increase in working age benefits to 1% in the autumn statement cheered up both side of the House, the Lib Dem benches looked a bit glum though. Labour and the Tories are both comfortable with these battles lines—convinced that the public is

Ed Miliband is ready to wage war with David Cameron and George Osborne over the Welfare Uprating Bill, which will see benefits rise by 1 per cent a year, rather than in line with inflation. The Labour leader has been talking tough in the papers this morning, with a piece in the Sunday Mirror in which he says: ‘We should be tough on the minority who can work and try to avoid responsibility. But there comes a moment when a government is exposed for who they are. That happened to David Cameron and George Osborne this week. ‘They showed they are not fit to govern because they played political games

In addition to his effective attack on Labour’s welfare policy, George Osborne used the Autumn Statement to take on Ed Miliband on another key electoral battleground. Over the past few months, the Labour leader has been trying to convince voters that he has the solution to their cost of living woes. His biggest offer so far has been the Living Wage, which sounds lovely to voters because it involves them being paid more money, but actually doesn’t work (something Miliband is clearly sufficiently aware of to stop him pledging to make a living wage mandatory). The coalition already had its own offer in the form of the rise in the

The biggest risk in punditry is the determination to see what you want to see. Confirmation bias is an ever-present clear and present danger to solid thinking. Nevertheless, though keeping this in mind, I wonder if Ed Miliband’s reaction to the Leveson Report has been wise, far less a response that will help him win the next election. By “wise” I mean wise in a purely political sense, not “wise” as in appropriate, sensible or well-judged. The Labour leader’s demand that Leveson’s recommendations be implemented is, in its way, remarkable. This, after all, is a 2,000 page report published in four volumes. And yet within this mountain of ponderous, muddle-headed

Following this afternoon’s statements I am certain that David Cameron is in a minority in the House of Commons in not wanting to create a statutory back-stop for a press regulator. But, so far, no one can explain how even an alliance of Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Eustice Tories can force the Prime Minister to provide parliamentary time for a bill that he doesn’t want. Cameron got the tone and content of his statement right. I’m reassured that Cameron appreciates that while he set up an inquiry, he didn’t outsource his judgment to Lord Justice Leveson. He is also surely correct that a press law, however brief, would have worrying

While Leveson packs his sun-cream and flip-flops and prepares for a holiday in Australia, the nation holds its breath in anticipation of his report. One lucky citizen, the prime minister, is permitted a sneak glance at the findings of the great inquisitor into press malpractice. At 11.45 this morning, the monumental hardback landed with a thump on Number 10’s doormat. David Cameron barely had time to turn to the index and see how many name-checks he’d been given before he was whisked off to the Commons to answer questions from Ed Miliband. It was not a great occasion. The opposition leader challenged Cameron on the failure of the Work Programme,

Messrs Miliband and Balls performed their pre-autumn statement double act today. If for some inexplicable reason you missed it, the Labour chiefs launched their Q&A with an attack on the government for its decision to cut 50p income tax rate to 45p: ‘The Government is about to give an average of £107,500 each to 8,000 people earning over a million a year. Not £40,000, but £107,500. To 8,000 millionaires. David Cameron and George Osborne are giving them this money. But it’s coming from you. ‘You are paying the price of their failure and them standing up for the wrong people. David Cameron and George Osborne believe the only way to persuade

Politics is gearing up for the publication of the Leveson Report next Thursday. It was telling that when Boris Johnson picked up politician of the year at The Spectator Parliamentarian of the Year awards, he didn’t use the occasion to list of his achievements in London or to reminisce about the Olympics but rather took the opportunity to decry the possibility of statutory regulation of the press. On the other side is Ed Miliband, whose party is committed to backing whatever Leveson comes up with. It is unclear yet what Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats will do. But there are a large chunk of Tory MPs who appear to

A muted PMQs today. But Cameron opened a fresh offensive which may prove to be a blunder. The leaders began by discussing the Gaza crisis in bland and soporific tones. The absence of heat and noise from the debate indicates how little it affects Britain. And how little Britain affects the debate. Cameron and Miliband were in virtual agreement throughout. And they were keen to urge everyone, other than themselves, to work harder to create peace. Cameron suggested that Obama should make the Middle-East a key objective of his second-term, just as one might make weeding the raspberries a key objective of the coming weekend. Miliband noted that ‘confidence in

The Sunday Papers and the broadcast shows are packed with accounts of Britain’s fractious relationship with the European Union, and what that means for David Cameron. The Observer gives space to a poll, the headline of which says that 56 per cent of Britons would ‘probably or definitely’ vote to leave the EU against 30 per cent who would probably or definitely vote to remain in the union. The Independent on Sunday carries a ComRes poll on the more immediate question of next week’s EU budget discussions. The findings will give Mr Cameron a headache: 66 per cent of voters want the budget ‘cut rather than frozen’. The voters will

Labour have won Corby from the Conservatives, and with a larger swing than most pundits were predicting. Its majority of more than 7,000 means that Labour now holds the seat with a larger majority than it did after the 2001 election. The Tories are already pointing to several factors to explain the scale of their defeat. It’s mid-term and the fact that Louise Mensch had quit the seat having won it last time to move to New York definitely hurt them. But it is still a poor, if not spectacularly so, result for them. I suspect it will lead to increased jitters on the Tory benches as MPs work out

It is a busy day on the economic front, with new inflation figures (which are expected to show an increase) to be released at 9.30am and Ed Davey, the energy secretary, to address the House about further allegations (published in the Guardian this time) that the wholesale price of gas has been fixed by traders. The claims were made by a whistleblower, Seth Freedman, who used to work at ICIS Heren, an agency that reports on gas prices. The Financial Services Authority and the energy regulator, Ofgem, have both swung into action to investigate Freedman’s allegations. It is only natural that the government would state its response to the House and