Politics

Listeners to the Today programme were treated to some comedy this morning, when noted Ed Miliband fan-boy Sunny Hundal tried to claim that Labour’s summer of discontent is part of a grand plan. Hundal was supposed to be countering the view that Ed is not doing enough to get to Downing Street, but ended up conceding the point live on air — and not before gentle Jim Naughtie spoke for the nation by telling the spluttering Hundal to ‘shut up’. The laughter on the face of fellow guest Jenni Russell says it all. Mr Steerpike feels sorry for little Ed. With friends like Sunny… listen to ‘James Naughtie vs Sunny Hundal’

Last December, after one of the most brutal PMQs this Parliament has seen, David Cameron was walking through the corridors of the Palace of Westminster to address a 1922 Committee meeting. Ed Miliband had subjected the Prime Minister to a real savaging, and Labour backbenchers had loyally joined in, raising a constituent’s suicide and describing Cameron’s government as ‘grandeur for the few, the workhouse for the many’. It had been a bleak session. Heading for Committee Room 14, the Prime Minister bumped into a junior minister, who was keen to reassure him that everything would come out in the wash. He told Cameron that ‘they can go for the emotional

Following this morning’s car crash radio interview, this is how Chris Bryant tried to win over the audience at the start of his speech on immigration to the IPPR… Come back Les Dawson, all is forgiven. PS: The full speech is here. The Telegraph’s Matt Holehouse has compared the pre-briefing and the delivered speech. As expected, the sections about Tesco and Next have been substantially rewritten. Yet to no avail; the damage has been done. Will Bryant survive Ed Miliband’s reshuffle?  

Labour’s failure to fill the summer news vacuum has now become a news story in itself. Ed Miliband comes back from holiday to find the Sunday papers full of stories about Labour grumbling, shadow Cabinet reshuffles and the like. But there’ll be no dramatic return by Miliband. There are no plans for big set piece speeches or a whistle-stop tour of Britain. One reason why Miliband himself has been so quiet this summer is that conference is already dominating his, and his team’s, thoughts. As I say in the Mail on Sunday today, they view conference as crucial to their efforts to persuade the country that Miliband is Prime Ministerial.

As the Gibraltar situation rumbles on, those familiar with the situation blame the Spanish Foreign Minister José García-Margallo for Spain’s bully-boy tactics. I’m told that he’s far more gung-ho on the matter than Prime Minister Rajoy on the matter. What makes the Foreign Minister’s behaviour particularly galling is that he began his career as the representative for one of Spain’s African enclaves in the Spanish parliament. If Melilla can be Spanish, then Gibraltar can be British. But as Danny Finkelstein points out in The Times today, one senses that Spanish politicians would rather have the Gibraltar issue than Gibraltar. If they really did want Gibraltar to become part of Spain

Tom Watson might be preparing to fly half round the world to continue his fight against Rupert Murdoch. But Ed Miliband has still not named a replacement for Watson as Labour’s campaign coordinator. It was thought that the contest for this role was between Michael Dugher, who was part of Watson’s team and is the choice of the Labour machine, and Douglas Alexander, the shadow Foreign Secretary, who ran Labour’s 2010 general election campaign and David Miliband’s leadership bid. Vernon Coaker, who is in line for promotion from the Northern Ireland brief in the coming reshuffle, was also considered a contender. But Patrick Wintour reports that two new names have

Hell, it’s been tough, but I think I’ve pulled through. I went out this morning to buy some cigarettes and there were plenty of people about, doing stuff — so the world has not changed beyond recognition these last couple of days. Everyone else seems to have made it. I hope you made it OK, too, without the need for counselling. Here we all are, huddled together, clutching at each other for warmth in the post-apocalyptic gloom. But we’re still standing. We managed to survive Caitlin Moran’s 24-hour boycott of Twitter. Moran is a journalist who decided to boycott Twitter because, incredible though it might seem, people keep saying nasty