Labour only hurts itself by whinging in public

Ed Miliband’s office has complained that no-one told them about Angela Merkel’s visit to London, which takes place tomorrow. They are apparently very irritated about no-one telling them, even though the Foreign Office isn’t required to flag up visits like this anyway. But worse than that, they were given warning: in the newspapers.

Here are the first few paragraphs of a story published by the Times on 27 December, entitled ‘Merkel puts culture and G7 on agenda for visit’:

‘Angela Merkel will make Britain her first overseas visit of the year in a sign of the importance that she attaches to her relationship with David Cameron.

‘The German chancellor, named yesterday as The Times person of the year, will visit London on January 7 as part of a round of preparatory meetings for the G7 summit, which she will host in Bavaria in June.’