Ed miliband

The knives are out again for Ed Miliband this morning. But the Labour leader is the least of his party’s problems. Labour has still not come up with answers to the two existential questions facing it, what’s the point of it when there’s no money left to spend and how should it respond to globalisation. I argue in this week’s magazine that until it does, the party will be in a death spiral. The Labour party has always believed in spending money for the common good. Even Tony Blair’s new Clause IV declared, ‘by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone.’ Public spending was

Ed Miliband has a speech billed as his make-or-break fightback proof-I’d-make-a-great-PM tomorrow morning. In truth, it’s rarely right to bill one political speech as The fightback, at least in voters’ minds, but the Labour leader does need to show that he hasn’t been crushed by the past few weeks – and reassure his party sufficiently for them to fight with him. His speech will be followed by ‘interventions’ from Ed Balls, Yvette Cooper, Chuka Umunna and Tristram Hunt in the next few days. To realise the first aim, Miliband has given an interview to Nick Robinson in which he produces that dreadful phrase ‘they say what doesn’t kill you makes you

A battle lost is worse than a battle won and there are fewer Pyrrhic victories in politics than you think. One of the staples of pre-election punditry, however, is that someone will always pipe up with the suggestion This is a Good Election to Lose. It is almost always bunk. Not least because, with the notable exception of the Liberal Democrats, major political parties are in the business of acquiring, then exercising, power. Shorn of that they lose their point. So there’s that. Nevertheless if you suspect there might be a but lurking a couple of lines in the future your premonition would, in this instance, be correct. But this might actually be

Well, the Labour party certainly knows how to give the appearance of a fight when its back is against the wall. Many MPs and supporters have spent quite a lot of this fine autumn day tweeting frantically that this morning’s unpleasant headlines (summarised in their full gory glory by James here) are a plot by the media to stop their thoroughly decent leader making it to Downing Street and why aren’t we all writing about the problems that David Cameron has with the Conservative party instead? They protest too much: if lobby journalists were organised enough to compile time sheets, most of us would quite clearly have spent the bulk

Is the latest Labour leadership crisis actually triggering new wave of party unity? Lord Prescott, who has slammed Miliband as ‘timid’ for his ‘complacent’ leadership style, spotted John McTernan, Tony Blair’s former political secretary turned columnist, in the reception of the BBC after they had both been on the airwaves to discuss the party’s dire straits. ‘I remember when we used to disagree about things’ called out Prezza. And it’s not just sparring partners in his own party who Ed is bringing together. At last some common ground has been found between Ukip and the Tories. ‘He’s the best thing going for absolutely everyone right now,’ one Ukip spin doctor

So Ed Miliband did manage to squeeze in a few words on his leadership alongside his comments on bus regulation. This afternoon he dismissed reports of a letter calling for him to stand down as Labour leader as ‘nonsense’ and said that the party’s focus was ‘on the country’. listen to ‘Ed Miliband dismisses reports of a Labour leadership crisis’ on audioBoom

The post-Jim Murphy Labour reshuffle has arrived, and while it’s not particularly seismic, it still tells us some interesting things about Ed Miliband’s thinking. The Labour leader has replaced the former Shadow International Development Secretary with Mary Creagh, which means it can’t be described as a consolation prize (something development campaigners were wary of as they’d rather someone who wanted the job, thank you). Creagh has a reputation in her party for being formidably well-briefed (although she managed to disappoint regional newspapers recently), and was particularly impressive in her last role but one as Shadow Environment Secretary when the horse meat scandal broke. Anas Sarwar, who some had tipped as

Even the po-faced Associated Press (video above) couldn’t but describe as ‘toe-curling’ Ed Miliband’s encounter with a homeless hijabi. Pundits agree that Ed appeared ‘terrified’ of the beggar in Manchester. Mr S was there, however – on unrelated business, of course – and can confirm that the opposition leader really did only have 2p in his pocket at the time. (Why on earth would he carry more?) Your correspondent was otherwise engaged, however (in discussion with my equine consultant) in the moment this photo was snapped: What could have been on his mind? Or that of shadow transport secretery Mary Creagh, for that matter, as they headed into the Manchester town hall? The new Scottish