Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

How can Ed Miliband make the most of Tory chaos over Carswell?

Ed Miliband would never have seen it coming, but he’s starting his first PMQs of the autumn term in a jolly good place. Labour MPs that I’ve spoken to over the past few days are now panicking not about how they can convince voters to back them but what on earth they’re actually going to do when they are in government.

Naturally the Labour leader can attack on Douglas Carswell’s defection to Ukip, but there are two reasons why he might not want to make this his first question. The first is that he would surely want to contrast some of the serious things that Labour has been talking about this week – on class sizes and deficit reduction – with the Tory party tearing itself up over Europe and Ukip. That would require the first few questions to be on schools or another serious matter.

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