Politics

With one well-timed jab in PMQs, David Cameron turned much of this week’s political debate – in domestic terms, at least – into a debate about Ed Miliband’s leadership. And how is Miliband responding? Predictably, for the most part. His celebratory speech in Feltham and Heston this morning reduced down to the claim that the result ‘offers a verdict on the Government’s failed economic plan’. And his interview in today’s FT covers much of the same territory. But the FT interview is also revealing in one particular regard: it demonstrates, once again, how Miliband is caught in a strange, undefinable strategy somewhere between attack and defence. This was, if you

The Times has a very interesting story (£) today on page 17. It claims that David Cameron had agreed to inform Nick Clegg if it appeared that Britain was going to be isolated at last week’s European Council. The significance of this is that it suggests that the Lib Dems believed they would be consulted before the government vetoed anything. This news emerges after senior Liberal Democrats have privately questioned why their leader did not insist that Cameron only use the veto once he had Clegg’s explicit agreement. The Times also reports that this negotiating protocol did not envisage a situation where Britain was left in a minority of only

David Cameron was greeted with a full-on, desk banging reception at the 1922 Committee. The applause only stopped when the chief whip told the assembled backbenchers to sit down. The Prime Minister’s message was that the next year is going to be even tougher than the 1979-81 period. He argued that the government needed to be even bolder to show that it wasn’t just a technocratic government but one motivated by a desire to help families who do the right thing, but sadly no MP pressed him on how that fitted with the coalition decision to increase out of work benefits by more than 5 per cent. One other interesting