The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 3 October 2012

issue 06 October 2012

Home

In a well-received 65-minute speech without notes to the party conference, Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, presented himself as a human being and concluded: ‘This is who I am. This is what I believe. This is my faith.’ Mr Miliband presented Labour as a One Nation party. He also said that if banks do not separate their retail and investment arms, a future Labour government would ‘break them up’. Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, said that 100,000 houses should be built with the £4 billion raised from the sale of the 4G mobile phone spectrum. Dave Prentis, of the union Unison, criticised Mr Miliband and Mr Balls for supporting a freeze on public-sector workers’ pay. Staff in Britain’s largest companies began to be automatically enrolled in a workplace pension scheme. Tesco saw its first fall in profits since 1994. The London interbank offered rate (Libor) will in future be set under a new administrator, instead of the British Bankers’ Association, according to the Financial Services Authority.

Comments

Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months

Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.

Already a subscriber? Log in