Ed balls

The unions deliver Ed Miliband to the throne

In the end, it was all quite exciting. After four months of soporific campaigning, after a speech by Gordon Brown, after tribute video upon tribute video, it all came down to an astonishingly tense round of results. And Ed Miliband edged out his brother by just over 1 percentage point overall, 50.6 to 49.4. It may have been the outcome that most punters expected coming into today – but it is not one that many would have predicted, with any confidence, back in May. Looking at the full voting split, a less flattering picture emerges. David Miliband actually won two of the three voting blocks: the MPs turned out 53-47

Ed Miliband elected Labour leader: live blog

1704, PH: We’ll leave it there, although we’ll have more reaction on Coffee House shortly. 1702, PH: I’ve already forgotten Miliband’s final line, although it involved the phrase “new generation”. Not a great speech, but some turnaround for him over the course of the contest. 1700, PH: Ooh, what does that mean for Ed Balls? Miliband says that, “I do believe we’ve got to reduce the deficit, but we’ve got to do more to help the country”. 1700, JF: It is what Labour MPs were calling the Doomsday scenario, Ed loses MPs and Members but wins thanks to massive support in the union section. Tonight there will be those who

The real battle begins tomorrow

So what’s all the fuss about today, then? Ah, yes, the election of the new Labour leader. We should know the result around 1640 this afternoon – but, this morning, most commentators are indulging in the idea that Ed has won it. The younger Miliband and his team said to be optimistic, his elder brother less so. At the very least, a remarkable turnaround has taken place. Just before the contest began, MiliD was some way ahead of his sibling in the bookies’ calculations. Now, Ladbrokes have suspended betting on MiliE. What happens today, though, is in some respects less important than what happens tomorrow. Today will be the day

It’s all over

The word here in Westminster is that the result of the Labour leadership contest has been certified. The significance of this is that it means the result is not close enough for the party officials to think that there is any need for a recount.

Yvette Cooper: a better Balls?

One thing’s for sure: Iain Duncan Smith won’t pay much attention to Yvette Cooper’s article in the Times (£) today – but the public might, and that’s what makes it such an artful piece of opposition politics. The whole thing is structured as a letter to IDS and, crucially, the tone is conciliatory and cooperative. “You and I agree that we should get more people into work,” she begins, before eventually landing on, “you need to stand up and shout for this in government. We will support you if you do.” But underneath this sweet talk there’s a streak of malicious intent that comes straight from her husband’s political textbook.

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Yesterday, Matthew Hancock constructed what you might call the defensive part of the government’s argument on cuts: an explanation of how spending restraint can be good for the country. Today, he strides forward with the offensive component: an attack dossier that asks of the new Labour leader, “What would you cut, Mr Miliband?” By Hancock’s calculations, David Miliband needs to set out £55 billion of cuts to meet his deficit reduction plans. For Ed Miliband, that figure hits £67 billion. The attack is two-pronged. First, it pushes the idea – contra Ed Balls – that cuts are necessary. And, second, it puts the Labour leader immediately on the back foot.

Ed Balls steps up his bid for the shadow chancellorship

With the result but a day away, there’s plenty of radio chatter about the Labour leadership election this morning. The Guardian reports that MiliD will work for MiliE if he loses. The FT observes Harriet Harman shifting towards the Eds’ position on the deficit, even if she is remaining neutral in the contest itself. A Populus poll for the Times (£) suggests that Gordon Brown is currently more popular among Labour supporters than either of the Milibands (which is deeply amusing). And Political Betting is calling it for Ed Miliband. But perhaps the most noteworthy contributions come courtesy of Ed Balls, compiled and skilfully analysed by Sunder Katwala over at

Hibernian Woe

As Iain Martin notes, it didn’t take Labour long to welcome the news that the Irish economy shrank by 1.2% last quarter*. Welcome isn’t quite how they put it but since Irish economic pain is a weapon with which the opposition can attack the coalition, Irish misery is a price worth paying so Ed Balls can feel vindicated. At least those who think fiscal restraint is needed at times such as these and who were perhaps too quick to welcome last quarter’s healthy growth in Ireland can say they want to see Ireland do well. In truth, both sides of the British (and for that matter American) debate are too

Mili-monomania

No doubt attempting to affect affability and languid charm, one of the Milibands has goaded his team into mastering a hybrid of semaphore and tic-tac to bring him early news of the leadership election result. It’s unclear which of the brothers has descended into total monomania, but it’s sobering to think he may have his finger on the button one day. The ballot closed yesterday, but idle speculation about the shadow cabinet has opened. The Miliband that loses is expected to be encouraged to run for shadow chancellor, though from what I hear Yvette Cooper or Ed Balls are the favourites for that prize. A deadwood edition of the Telegraph

The ballot closes

“Quietly confident.” That’s how Diane Abbott felt as the Labour leadership ballot entered its final hours today. I can only assume that she meant “…of victory,” but the bookies, and all sensible observers, are telling a different story. With the polls now closed, Ladbrokes has David Miliband as the 4/7 favourite, Ed Miliband is on 5/4, Ed Balls and Andy Burnham are both 100/1 shots – and Abbott? Well, Abbott is wheezing along at 150/1. Whoever wins, one thing is for certain: we are about to enter a new cycle in British politics, and one which should clear up a few itchingly persistent questions. How will the coalition fare against

Balls, McBride and off-the-record briefings

John Rentoul has already pulled the best passage from this preview of a forthcoming radio series on Gordon Brown. But I reckon that the testimony of Spencer Livermore, the former strategy chief in No.10, deserves a spot in the Westminster scrapbook: “Mr Livermore, who was Downing Street’s director of political strategy, regrets not warning about the downside of scrapping the election when Team Brown got cold feet as polling in marginal seats suggested only a slim Labour majority. ‘I don’t think it’s possible. Does anyone?’ the Prime Minister told his inner circle at the crucial meeting. The mood was ‘very, very sombre’, according to Mr Livermore. Ed Miliband told Mr

James Forsyth

The Labour leadership contest, all over bar the voting

The Labour leadership hustings are over, tonight’s one on Question Time was the last one. As has been the case at so many previous hustings, Ed Balls was the most intellectually forceful of the contenders. Whatever you think of his arguments on the economy (and I disagree with them), he puts them across with a clarity and directness that none of the other candidates can match. It was revealing how when Ed Balls took issue with Andy Burnham’s accurate statement that there would have been ‘significant job loses’ under Labour, the others all backed away. In the contest between the two front runners, David Miliband was the more statesman-like refusing to get drawn into

Citizen Castro rains on Comrade Hattie’s last parade

There was praise for Fidel Castro – of all people – at PMQs today. That the tribute came from a Tory MP must make this a unique event in the annals of parliament. Castro’s recent admission that Cuba’s state monopolies might profit from a little nibbling around the edges gave Priti Patel, (Con, Witham), a bright idea. She asked the prime minister if the Marxist cigar-enthusiast might visit the TUC Conference to share his economic vision with the brothers. The PM, who seemed calm, fresh and genially bullish today, caught the joke and ran with it. He offered his own tribute to the semi-retired dictator. ‘Even Comrade Castro is on

Are the Labour leadership polls telling the whole story?

This weekend’s YouGov poll showing Ed Miliband ahead in the Labour leadership contest is the talk of Westminster today. One David Miliband backer told me that he thought it was flawed as it assumed that MPs’ second preferences would split evenly between the two brothers when David had the advantage. I was told that nearly all Andy Burnham’s parliamentary backers would put David second, that most of Balls’ would do the same and that Ed Miliband could only rely on Diane Abbott’s parliamentary backers’ second preferences. But Ed Miliband’s supporters dispute this. They believe that they are making progress everywhere.   There are now just two hustings to go—one at

David Miliband has the best of it as the Labour leadership candidates debate

David Miliband’s performance in Sky News’ Labour leadership hustings will have calmed the nerved of his supporters. In the run-off between him and his brother, David came out on top. His answers were generally sharper and he managed to parry away Ed’s criticisms on tuition fees and foreign policy. (In a pointed remark, Ed said that the Labour government’s foreign policy had been based on ‘old ideas’.) Indeed, Ed Miliband only seemed to get going in his closing statement which was pitch-perfect David’s best moment came when the contenders were asked to pick between Blair and Brown. Ed Balls opted for Brown, Diane Abbott said that Brown ‘was the better

First free schools will open next September

Tomorrow’s Guardian front page says Michael Gove dealt fresh blow as only 20 ‘free schools’ approved. But this is actually not a bad rate of progress. The 20 refers only to the new schools that will open in September 2011, more will open in 2012 and 2013 and so on. One would expect the numbers to increase as momentum behind the programme builds. As soon as parents see what these schools can do, there’ll be greater demand for them. Ed Balls is out tonight with a typically pugnacious statement claiming that this proves that parents don’t want free schools. But it is worth remembering that Tony Blair, a man who

James Forsyth

Balls turns on the man he called Labour’s ‘greatest ever leader’

The ever-pugnacious Ed Balls was on the Today Programme this morning denouncing Tony Blair for saying that the coalition was, broadly, right in its deficit reduction plans. As Balls warmed to his task, he started reeling off Blair’s failings—his advocacy of entry into the euro, his one-sided account of things in his autobiography and the like— and I wondered: if this is his opinion of the man he called Labour’s greatest ever-leader, what on earth does he think of the other men who have led the party?   But in all seriousness, the coalition needs to start hitting back at the ‘growth denier’ charge that Balls keeps hurling at them.

Blair’s contempt for the left

In tomorrow’s papers the reviewers will compare ‘A Journey’ to those “real-life” misery memoirs that seem to be publishing catnip. It is not inaccurate to conclude that this is tale of one man’s struggle in an abusive relationship, and all the more unstatesmanlike for it. The tiny details of the relationship between TB and GB fascinate me. Brown is the one, Blair admits, who coined the soundbyte “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime” for example. However, by far the most interesting aspect of the book is Blair’s barely disguised hatred of the Labour left and, most of all, the left-wing intellectuals. So here, very quickly are some

Labour needs a Byrne rather than a Balls

And Westminster’s Idle Question of the Day is: will Ed Balls be made shadow chancellor under a Miliband leadership? There are good arguments both for and against the proposition – and most of them are made in this blog post by the Guardian’s Nicholas Watt. Even Blairites, he says, are warming to the idea of Balls running Labour’s economic policy. But if it’s to happen under David Miliband, then the two men would have to reconcile their different views on tackling the deficit. Under Ed Miliband, the reconciliation would have to be more personal than economic. Neither, I suppose, is impossible. But as all this speculation whirls around Balls, I

The Blair memoirs loom over Labour’s leadership struggle

A day before the ballot papers get sent out, and the grey corpse that was the Labour leadership contest has suddenly leapt into a crazy jig. Ed Balls is slamming the “soap opera” of the Mili-rivalry, while calling for more social housing. Andy Burnham is insisting that he’s still in with a chance of winning. Alan Johnson has – with a nod to Jose Mourinho, of all people – labelled David Miliband as “the special one“. And as part of his rebranding exercise the former Foreign Secretary has even starting making fairly amusing gags. Welcome to the Twilight Zone. But it’s not just the prospect of imminent voting that is