The Adventures of Ed

Steerpike is back in this week’s edition of The Spectator. Here is a sneak preview, as ever:

‘Ed Miliband, meeting Denmark’s prime minister, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, gobbled up his Danish pastry double-quick so that he could immortalise their interview on Twitter. ‘Discussed growth, living standards and how to make Europe work for its people,’ he told his followers. The technical term, ‘people’, here refers to beneficiaries of the gargantuan EU bureaucracy like Glenys and Neil Kinnock who, by an apt coincidence, are the parents-in-law of Ms Thorning-Schmidt. Mr Miliband then sprinted off to a top-level seminar on innovation. This prompted another newsflash. ‘Hearing about Laila Ohlgren who invented the call button on mobile phones.’ Important stuff, Ed. Don’t forget to meet the pioneer who added the heating element to the toaster. And the genius who made soup bowls concave. And the chap who put holes in pepper pots. And the guy who decided to stand under a tree while it was raining.