Labour party

David Cameron has not had the best of weeks. At home, he is engaged in a mucky fight with the former government aide Dominic Cummings and abroad he is facing defeat in his attempt to stop Jean-Claude Juncker from becoming president of the European Commission. But in the papers today, it is Ed Miliband who has all the problems. The Guardian splashes on how Labour frontbenchers do not want Miliband to stay on after an election defeat. If this story had appeared in almost any other paper, Miliband’s team could have tried to dismiss it as the price you pay for standing up to Rupert Murdoch or backing Leveson. But

It’s tempting given the optimistic mood on the Conservative benches at the moment to think that everything is just great with the economy. Not so, according to today’s borrowing figures from the ONS, which show that government borrowing was higher than expected: George Osborne borrowed £13.3bn in May, up £0.7bn from the same month last year, and much higher than the £9.35bn forecast. Tax receipts have been weaker than expected, which has contributed to higher net borrowing. [datawrapper chart=”http://static.spectator.co.uk/L158N/index.html”] Labour is saying that Osborne is now set to break his promise to balance the books by next year, while also arguing that it will balance the books but ‘in a

Rigorous welfare reforms for the under-25s must be combined with targeted tax breaks. That’s the best way to get young Britain going and galvanise the new electorate. For keen observers, Ed Miliband’s speech on welfare may sound familiar. Last November Labour dropped plans — to scrap benefits for the under-25s — like a hot potato after vicious attacks from activists. Yet a few months on and Miliband rehashes these, pledging to continue good work this government is already doing, for instance young people already receive a lower rate of Jobseeker’s Allowance and can already take up training and continue receiving their benefits. It seems that Ed Miliband is the timid

Ed Miliband’s popularity ratings have sunk below those of Nick Clegg this week, so what can Labour do? In this week’s View from 22 podcast, James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman discuss the Miliband problem —we’ve put together the video highlights above. Will Labour contemplate sacking him? Is there anyone else who could do a better job? And will the upcoming shadow cabinet reshuffle improve his standing? You can listen to the full discussion on the podcast tomorrow morning. Subscribe to the View from 22 through iTunes and have it delivered to your computer every week.

Helen Goodman, the Labour MP for Bishop Auckland in Durham, was born in Nottinghamshire and brought up in Derbyshire, so you would have thought that she might take extra care to brush up on her local knowledge of Durham to avoid accusations of ‘carpet-bagging’. The Northern Echo gleefully reports: ‘The village of Ingleton is so famous for its beautiful waterfalls and deep caves that MP Helen Goodman waxed lyrical about them as she opened a County Durham fair. Unfortunately for the Bishop Auckland MP she was talking about Ingleton, in North Yorkshire – which lies 70 miles away.’ The reaction from the local population has been blistering. Take Durham resident

Judging by the tone of the commentary at the moment, you would think that Labour were badly behind in the polls. In fact, they are ahead by a few points—a margin that would still give Miliband a majority. But what should worry the Labour leader most is that every time the Labour machine is put under scrutiny it is found wanting. Tom Watson, in an intervention that will further worry leadership loyalists, has been out and about making this point this morning. Last month’s election campaign when Miliband didn’t know the name of the candidate he was campaigning for in Swindon was all too typical of Labour’s failings. The left

Ed Miliband’s love affair with The Sun has ended almost as soon as it had begun. Following reports that he was ‘very very sorry’ for endorsing the newspaper, the Labour leader appears to have u-turned under pressure from his own party. A Labour spokesperson said this afternoon: ‘Ed Miliband was promoting England’s bid to win the World Cup and is proud to do so. But he understands the anger that is felt towards The Sun over Hillsborough by many people in Merseyside and he is sorry to those who feel offended.’ As I wrote yesterday, Miliband’s pro-Sun position was at odds with many of of his own MPs (as well as his

Ed Miliband appears to have had a sudden change of heart about The Sun. After calling for Rupert Murdoch’s empire to be dismantled, the Labour leader has endorsed The Sun’s World Cup special today. Not all of his colleagues feel the same way — many of them have been tweeting critical remarks about the paper. Here’s a selection: The shadow environment secretary Maria Eagle: Bill Esterson, the Labour MP for Blundellsands: Chi Onwurah, the Labour MP for Newcastle Central: Madeleine Moon, the Labour MP for Bridgend: Tom Watson, the Labour MP for West Bromwich East and ardent anti-Murdoch campaigner: Watson at least had a sense of humour about the situation: And

‘I don’t know why energy companies invest in Britain,’ said a former energy minister to me a couple of weeks ago. He was referring to the lack of progress on shale exploration (more of which later), but he might easily have been talking about the politicisation of energy prices. In case you haven’t heard, Ofgem, the energy regulator, has written to the Big Six energy firms to ask them to explain why the fall in wholesale prices over the past 12 months has not been passed on to the consumer. Another political row has broken out, with politicians on all sides claiming that the energy market is dysfunctional. They have cause to

Labour’s failure to offer a credible economic alternative to the Tories is going hurt them in next year’s election, according to Charles Clarke. The former Labour Education and Home Secretary proved to be a ray of sunshine on the Daily Politics today, arguing that Ed Miliband has failed to explain to voters why the Labour’s alternative plan for the economy is the right one. When asked whether the Conservatives’ strategy is cogent, Clarke said: ‘It’s very cogent. I don’t think it’s true, myself, as a matter of fact. I think Labour has a much better story to tell about the last government and the economy than is widely believed. But

Labour’s John Woodcock is being teased mercilessly by his colleagues. A recent fundraising event which he organised was secretly recorded – and embarrassing quotes from fellow Labour MPs and candidates, who thought they were speaking behind closed doors, leaked out. Woodcock should know about the sort of dirty-tricks that the parties play on each other. He was the young, wet-behind-the ears bag-carrier who Labour sent out to pretend to be a Tory in order to record events. He got lucky in March 2005 when he caught the Tories’ then Deputy Chairman Howard Flight claiming that the Conservatives would slash spending in power, contrary to their manifesto commitment in that election

I see that the Labour party, and Labour’s shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt in particular, are trying to make political capital out of the ‘Trojan Horse’ Islamic schools scandal. I’ll write more about this in the coming week, but for the meantime let me point out what a steaming pile of political opportunism and hypocrisy this all is. Tristram says that Michael Gove ‘chose not to act’ and is guilty of ‘gross negligence’ on Islamic extremism in schools. Let me remind Tristram of a very recent piece of Labour party history. In 2009 it transpired that the Labour government was funding a school-running group called the Islamic Shakhsiyah Foundation (ISF). At that

Here’s a clever way to get more exposure for your political slogan. You say it so often in speeches, press releases and planted questions from the whips that it seeps everywhere, you start dreaming it, and your opponents get very cross indeed. Then your opponents accidentally say your political slogan while all mithered. Then they get a bit jealous that it’s popping up in every single piece of government literature so they complain about this political slogan, which they mention, again, thus ensuring it reaches more and more and more people. Bravo to an opposition that stays calm in the face of a barrage of ‘long-term economic plans’ designed to