The Miliband brothers may yet drown each other in a butt of malmsey

James Forsyth reviews the week in politics

From a distance, Tony Blair might be able to persuade himself that the Labour party contest now underway is the fulfilment of his dreams. The ‘brothers’ everyone is talking about are not trade union heavies but two Oxford PPE graduates who have worked their way up through the New Labour machine. But to listen to what they say, there is scant evidence of Blair’s election-winning philosophy. The candidates are outbidding each other on making punitive levels of taxation on the rich permanent, denouncing Labour’s rapprochement with big business and committing to abolishing tuition fees.

Not that anyone is listening much to what they say. At Monday night’s hustings there were no television cameras — their absence a nasty reminder to the candidates of the diminished status of opposition. When they do appear on television, as they did on Newsnight on Tuesday, they are treated like dancing fleas — not big beasts of the political jungle.