Politics

Less soap opera, and more policy grit, in today’s batch of Ed Balls files. There is, for instance, a lot on Gordon Brown’s proposed Bill of Rights (here, here, here and here), which is as ambrosia for future political historians, but is fairly turgid reading even for today’s political anoraks. Likewise the charts and doodlings related to the structure of Brown’s Downing Street. Yet some things do stand out. Here are a few of them: i) What the Treasury says, Brown didn’t do. You’ve got to admire the Treasury’s attempt to inject some realism into the fiscal calculus back in 2006. “Flat real” spending — i.e. public spending that rises

Tonight’s Guardian scoop revealing that the speech that David Miliband would have given if he had been elected leader makes this one of the most difficult—and leaky—weeks for Labour since its election defeat. The line in the speech that will cause the most trouble for Ed Miliband is that David Miliband intended to create a commission on the deficit chaired by Alistair Darling and charged with creating a new set of fiscal rules, an admission that Labour got it wrong on the deficit which Ed Miliband has refused to give. This speech emerging just a day after Ed Ball’s private papers about the plot to force Tony Blair to stand

Cameron made history today. He gave the Speaker a genuine reason to call PMQs to a halt. Usually Mr Bercow pops up two or three times to shout down shouters and to waste time by ordering time-wasters not to waste time. But today protocol obliged him to stop proceedings. A half-hearted punch-up was in progress over government u-turns and the PM was defending his reforms by referring to his favourite Labour ally, the shadow health secretary. If he quotes John Healey much more often Cameron will owe him royalties. Ed Miliband accused the government of lengthening waiting times by abolishing Labour’s targets and Cameron countered by claiming that the figures