Labour miss out the details

Labour’s launch of its new youth jobs policy has been rather overshadowed by Harriet Harman’s inability to explain the costing behind the policy on the Daily Politics earlier: not a good look for a party trying to show that it is fiscally credible. But more interesting than the number behind the policy is how it marks an attempt by Labour to toughen up its position on welfare. Those young workers who have been out of work for a year will have to take one of these minimum wage jobs or have their benefits docked.





On the Labour front, the interview with Ed Miliband in the Times today is also worthy of comment. In it, Miliband talks very directly about how the example of his father, who fled the Nazi occupation of Belgium and then became an influential Marxist academic, influences his politics.  

To date, Miliband has rather shied away from talking about his family because it, obviously, brings up the whole question of his relationship with David — he tells the paper that they have ‘sort of moved on’ since the leadership race.