Ed Miliband prepares for his most testing week yet

While the Tories bask in the glory of Abu Qatada’s deportation, the progress of James Wharton’s Private Member’s Bill, and the general good atmosphere in the party, Labour is trying to work out what the best response to its terrible week is, and how to get to a situation where it is on top of the story, rather than jogging after it. The Independent on Sunday quotes one senior figure today as saying that Ed Miliband only has two weeks in which to resolve the Falkirk row, and his acolytes were out in force today to underline that the fightback is already under way. Michael Dugher has just appeared on Pienaar’s Politics to say that the ‘process of change, if anything, has got to accelerate and I think that’s what you will see in the days and weeks coming after this’. Those changes to the party’s relationship with the unions will be ‘very bold, ambitious’ and ‘big’, he told the programme.

The next two weeks are indeed dangerous for Miliband because anything other than a powerful response will allow the Tories to brand him permanently with the ‘weak leader’ line they’ve been focusing on over the past month.