Ed miliband

Here’s one aspect of the Labour leadership contest that has passed without much comment: how many of the contenders want to extend the 50p tax rate from those earning over £150,000 to those earning over £100,000. Ed Miliband’s one of them; so is Diane Abbott; and so too – as he reminds us in interview with Left Forward Forward today – is Ed Balls. Sure, only one of these candidates has a realistic chance of becoming leader – but another could easily end up as shadow chancellor. So it’s fairly probable that this will be official Labour policy in the not-too-distant. If so, the impetus behind the tax hike will

The New Statesman has backed Ed Miliband in the battle of the brothers. Press endorsements don’t count for what they used to, but the country’s leading left-wing magazine remains significant in this context. Below is tomorrow’s New Statesman lead article; it rejects the charge that Ed Miliband is ‘comfort zone Labour’ and portrays him as a thoughtful dissenter from New Labour’s orthodoxy. (On the counter, there are rumours that Jon Cruddas is to back David Miliband. Support from such an independent and left-minded source would be worth its weight in gold for David Miliband.) ‘The Labour leadership contest began in earnest with the New Statesman debate at Church House in

Crack out the nibbles, David: looks like you’re going to win the Labour leadership. An extensive You Gov poll of Labour members and trade unionists puts David Miliband 8 points clear of his brother in the final run-off. This is the first statistical analysis that supports the general feeling in Westminster that Ed Miliband’s charge has calmed. Courtesy of John Rentoul, the results are diluted in this table. UPDATE: Mike Smithson points out that the fieldwork for this poll was carried out between 27-29 July. So I stand corrected: Ed Miliband’s charge has been on the wane for a month.

What to make of the Charlie Kennedy to defect to Labour rumour? Well, judging from the people I have spoken to this evening, the rumour seems premature. There’s no sense that a defection is imminent and a Lib Dem spokesman was emphatic in his denial of the story earlier. But it does seem that Kennedy has spoken with Labour figures about how unhappy he is with the coalition. These conversations, though, appear to have been more of the crying on the shoulder variety than any kind of formal defection talks. A former leader leaving the party would obviously be a significant blow to the Liberal Democrats. But the fact that

As Channel 4 reminds us, there have been two major trends in recent opinion polls. First, the precipitous decline in the Lib Dem vote share. And, second, a solidification of the Labour position, such that some polls even have them as the biggest party in a hung parliament. Predictably, this has stirred the omnipresent Simon Hughes, and some other folk around Westminster, into talking about a LibLab coalition. Which is why Ed Miliband’s comments in the New Statesman today are so eyecatching. He tells Jason Cowley and Mehdi Hasan that he couldn’t go into the coalition with the Lib Dems if they were led by Nick Clegg. He’s got problems

Westminster might be in holiday mode, but behind the scenes the coalition is preparing to take on the new Labour leader. As I say in the Mail on Sunday, the coalition is determined to hit whichever Miliband wins early and hard. The Cameroons believe that Tony Blair’s decision not to attack Cameron straight away in 2005 was crucial in allowing him to present himself to the public on his own terms. By contrast, both Hague and Duncan Smith were made to look like losers by the Labour attack machine within months of becoming leader of the opposition. The result of the Labour leadership election will be announced on the 25th

An eyecatching claim from Ed Miliband, interviewed by Channel 4’s Krishnan Guru-Murthy: “I don’t think our spending was irresponsible.” And here’s a graph in response: I’ll let CoffeeHousers draw their own conclusions.

I can’t work out what’s stranger: that anyone, let along the author Ken Follett, should donate £100,000 to Ed Balls’ leadership campaign, or that the Liverpool footballer Jamie Carragher (“Mr Liverpool”) should give £10,000 to the devoted Evertonian Andy Bunrham. Either way, they’re probably the two stand-out entries in the latest list of Labour leadership donations. But the real story is the same as the last time the donations were published: David Miliband’s monetary advantage. Even with Ed Balls raising £103,000 in July, the elder Miliband brother still comes out on top with £138,835 – adding to an overall war chest which dwarfs those of all the other contenders. The

Writing for the Times, Tim Montgomerie neatly overlays Aesop onto the Labour leadership contest: “The next Labour leader is unlikely to be an Abbott, Balls or Burnham. Gordon Brown’s successor will be a Miliband. But I’m more interested in whether he will be Mr Sun or Mr Wind. Aesop captured the dilemma in a fable. If you want a man to take off his cloak, do you huff and puff and force him to give it up or do you cover him with warmth until he discards it freely? In Aesop, the sun scores a predictable victory. Politics isn’t so easy. Harriet Harman’s blasts at Nick Clegg’s alleged betrayal of

How could I have forgotten to mention this in my last post? In that YouGov poll on the Labour leadership race, Ed Balls finished in a resounding last place. Yep, the former Schools Secretary is stuck on 11 percent of first preference votes – behind both Diane Abbott and Andy Burnham, who are tied on 12 percent, as well as both Miliband brothers of course. And the news has got Jim Pickard and Mehdi Hasan wondering: just what will Balls do next? Has he given up on winning? Will he drop out of the race and concentrate on becoming shadow chancellor? I know plenty of Tories who wouldn’t know whether

Springtime for Ed Miliband, curtains for Balls. Or at least it should be, following the news that Unite will back Miliband for the leadership. It is rumoured that Balls will pull out of the race and support David Miliband in an attempt to secure the shadow chancellor’s post. But only Brown does seemingly blind defiance better than Balls. This morning, Balls has assaulted the airwaves with the full complement of Brownite clichés: ‘I fight on; I fight to win. I’m in it to win it. I am the best person to fight this coalition.’ You get the impression that he means it, and he’ll fight on in hope rather than

Ed Miliband has secured a clean sweep of the major unions. That poses Miliband a problem in the future – centrist opponents can characterise him as ‘the union candidate’ with all its negative connotations. In the meantime, Miliband’s chances of becoming the next Labour leader have been greatly enhanced.   Ed Balls, however, is effectively finished. Balls will recognise this, and will be considering his next move. Now his ambition is to be shadow chancellor, and, as Paul Waugh argued yesterday, David Miliband is the candidate most likely to offer him that, or so the theory goes.  It is, if you’ll excuse the expression, all eyes on Balls.    

Paul Waugh sees it as his duty to pass on little drops of intrigue, and this one’s a dollop. If, as is expected, Unite back Ed Miliband tomorrow, the clapped-out Balls juggernaught will finally croak: there is no chance of him winning without Unite’s backing. There is a widespread rumour that Balls will pull out and back David Miliband. Waugh explains why: ‘The scenario painted to me is this: by dropping out and backing David M, his chances of becoming Shadow Chancellor are greatly enhanced. (The assumption here is that Ed Mili can’t offer him Shadow Chancellor because the top of the ticket would just look too unbalanced…that’s an assumption

Ed Miliband will give his second preference vote in the Labour leadership contender to his brother, he tells the New Statesman’s Jason Cowley.   The Ed Miliband interview is part of a really rich set of profiles of the Labour leadership candidates. Diane Abbott inadvertently reveals that it is David Miliband who is taking the duties of a future Labour leader most seriously with her complaint that he is the leadership candidate who insisted on a meeting to find out what the duties of the victorious candidate would be at conference.    Both Eds offer quite left-wing prospectuses. Ed Balls argues that Labour didn’t lose because it lost touch with