A record of seven days of attacks on Ed Miliband ... from his own side

By Joseph Willits 
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Over the past week, Ed Miliband has come under criticism from various figures in the Labour party - including from mentor and architect of 'Blue Labour', Lord Glasman, and other Labour MPs. Adding to this list today, both Alan Johnson and Alistair Darling have expressed their concerns.

In Saturday's Guardian interview, a calm Ed Miliband appeared defiant towards his critics:

 "You discover things about yourself in this job, which is that I am someone of real steel and grit, which is why I stood for the job in the first place when many people said I should not."

• In today's Daily Mirror, former Home Secretary Alan Johnson said that for Labour to be electable it must shed its "debating society" approach, and state how it would cut the deficit. The party cannot use small opinion poll leads to "hide the fact the public remains suspicious about Labour".
• Former Chancellor Alistair Darling  said that Labour had "to restore [its] reputation for economic credibility", and offer a “credible and compelling” economic position.
• Downing Street's Deputy Chief of Staff from 2007-10, Gavin Kelly called for a "bigger and blunter" debate on public spending and for the party to unlearn old political models.
• Writing in the New Statesman last week, Lord Glasman accused Miliband's leadership of having "no strategy, no narrative and little energy", with the Labour party leader himself having "flickered rather than shone, nudged not led".
• Over the handling of Diane Abbott's controversial tweet, Labour MP Graham Stringer said: "I don’t think on issues such as race we should look as hypocritical or as incompetent as Liverpool FC has done in the Luis Suarez case. Ed has got to get a grip and turn it around before the May elections".
• Miliband could still be a success as Labour leader, suggested Meg Munn MP with more clarity in Labour policy. Munn also added: "Whether he will be is another matter".
• Echoing comments made by Lord Glasman, Roger Godsiff MP also called for "fresh thinking" in the Labour party, and "to break with the old order economically".

Sayeeda Warsi claims Alistair Darling's memoirs reinforce doubts about Ed Balls' suitability for high office

By Tim Montgomerie
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Many have predicted that Alistair Darling's memoirs were most likely to raise eyebrows (geddit?) and early extracts suggest they are not going to disappoint.

Darling worked particularly closely with Brown, both when the latter was Chancellor and PM.

Darling may have been scrupulously loyal throughout Labour's time in office but he's about to catch up for lost time in his book "Back from the Brink: 1,000 Days at Number 11"...

• Darling will describe Brown's temperament as "brutal and volcanic";
• In new evidence that the former Labour PM was always briefing against colleagues Darling will accuse Brown of "making bullets" which were then fired at him by close aides;
• He will accuse arch plotter Ed Balls of running a parallel Treasury operation while he was Chancellor;
• He will say that Yvette Cooper, Balls' wife, was appointed to the Treasury team to keep an "eye on him";
• The Times (£) says that 'Back from the Brink' will confirm speculation that Darling did threaten to resign at Brown's often impossible behaviour.

Tory Chairman Sayeeda Warsi issued a statement yesterday, focusing on Mr Darling's remarks about Ed Balls:

“Alistair Darling’s memoirs should give Ed Miliband some concerns about Ed Balls’ suitability to be shadow chancellor. Ed Balls recently claimed that he ‘did his politics on the record’, but he has already been shown to have been at the heart of the plot to oust Tony Blair. Now Alistair Darling accuses him of running a shadow treasury operation within his own government. No wonder Labour left the nation’s finances in such a mess when they put party political plotting above the national interest.”

Brown is not the only victim of Darling's pen. In words that will have people nodding across Westminster and Whitehall he describes Mervyn King, the Bank of England's Governor, as "amazingly stubborn and exasperating".

Labour Uncut has more advance material on the memoirs this morning; "Darling lashes “stupid” and “arrogant” bankers for taking Britain to the “brink of collapse”".

The next Scottish Labour leader... Tom Harris MP?

By Matthew Barrett
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The BBC is reporting that Scottish Labour MP Tom Harris "has stated his interest in becoming the new Labour leader in Scotland.". Harris is firmly on the centre-left, and was one of Labour's star bloggers before leaving the blogosphere last year. He also stood, unsuccessfully, for the Shadow Cabinet elections after Ed Miliband became leader of the Labour Party late last year. 

The Scottish Labour leadership election has, so far, failed to look particularly professional, and this seems to be one of the reasons for Harris' entry into the race. The Scotsman has more details:

"Mr Harris, speaking on the BBC's Good Morning Scotland programme today, said he had put his name forward because of the lack of candidates to emerge from Labour's ranks at the Scottish Parliament.

He said: "The reason I have allowed my name to be mentioned in the speculation about this is purely and simply because we lost in May, Iain Gray announced he was standing down in September, which is next week, and I don't even know if that's going ahead."

Mr Harris added: "I am raising the possibility - the very slim possibility of my candidacy - because there are ideas that I have that I think the party should at least be debating, because by the time the next Scottish Parliament elections come up in 2016, we need to know what type of party Scottish Labour will be.""

Every Coalition spending cut is now opposed by Labour

By Matthew Barrett
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Labour politicians have long pointed to their "Plan B", and their deficit reduction strategy that would, apparently, be carried out slower than the Coalition plan, and be less "painful". Ed Balls, Labour's Shadow Chancellor, told the House on Thursday - in a debate on the Global Economy, during the recalled Parliament's sitting - that Labour's plan for the country was "a tough, medium-term plan to get our deficit down". (Read Ed Balls' contribution to the debate in Hansard here.)

Will Labour join with Tory rebels to stop bailouts?

by Paul Goodman

Some of my anti-bailout Euro-sceptic contacts are setting great store in a working alliance with Labour over bailouts.  When I reply that Labour has no credibility as an anti-Brussels party, and that the party is strategically pro-EU, they agree - but point out that Labour could echo John Smith's tactical manoevering in the Commons over Maastrict, and move to defeat the Government over future bailout proposals.

It's arguable that only poor planning by rebels prevented the Government from losing the recent Commons vote on the matter.  A Euro-sceptic source told me that Labour was set to vote with them, and only changed its mind because it read Mark Reckless's motion as suggesting that Alistair Darling signed up to a bailout arrangement that he knew to be illegal.

A year out of office, Alistair Darling backs Gordon Brown's rival for head of the IMF

Matthew Barrett
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The merits of current French finance minister Christine Lagarde for the position of head of the International Monetary Fund have been discussed elsewhere by others more au fait with macroeconomic matters than I. But what is politically significant is Alistair Darling's support for Lagarde over a candidate from this country. Darling said of Lagarde:

"She has an easygoing manner and she gets on with people exceptionally well. I remember a meeting of Ecofin [EU finance ministers] dealing with the Greek crisis last May and it was her determination that the meeting would not end before there was an agreement, which meant there was an agreement."

Gordon Brown has so far failed to attract the support of many people in Britain. Since David Cameron ruled out backing Brown for the job, there has been a low-key Labour response of "the Tories are putting party before country". Ed Miliband said Brown is "eminently qualified" - but what else could he say? He is the leader of a party that firmly believes Brown's policies were correct.

Brown's own Chancellor, Darling, who no longer has to obey the Brownite line since stepping down from Cabinet after the election, has been free to support who he wishes. By supporting Brown's European rival Lagarde, and praising her as having qualities no-one would assign to Brown, Darling has managed to dismantle any credibility Brown's bid might have had.

Darling squeezes Balls in a vice

By Paul Goodman

Alistair Darling gave George Osborne an end-of-term present on Marr earlier this morning.  He said that he wished that he'd won Cabinet battles over whether Labour should have committed to raise VAT at the general election. "Yeah, obviously," he said when asked whether he'd like to have won the dispute over the tax, recently revealed by Lord Mandelson.

"It's no secret, I said at the time and since Peter [Mandelson] has actually spelt out in gory detail, I'm not going to deny what was patently true...There's a choice really, you can put up VAT or you can put up an income-related tax which is what the National Insurance is....The advantage of VAT is it brings in a lot of money."

Guess who's been busying campaigning against VAT.  The answer's here.  I pointed out recently that the Shadow Education Secretary had made a bit of a mess of making his case in the Daily Telegraph.  But Balls' argument were illuminating.

The reason why people laugh at Ed Balls

Further to my CentreRight earlier today here, the reason why people laugh at Ed Balls has little do with either his name or his stammer.  (See his Daily Mirror piece here.)

If you want to know it is, please turn to his article in this morning's Daily Telegraph here.

Balls' case is -

1) Raising VAT is wrong, because "VAT is the only tax that everyone has to pay, even if they are unemployed or pensioners, and because it hits couples with the children the hardest.  It is always the least fair option for raising tax".

2) The Conservatives plan "massive" spending cuts.  They will "use inflated fears of a debt and monetary crisis to justify massive public spending cuts and an increase in VAT; blame it all on Labour's management of the economy; and use the resulting war chest to cut income tax before the next election".

3) Labour has to be "clear about the need to reduce the deficit".  However, "we must urge that it is done steadily, fairly and in a way that doesn't put economic recovery at risk.  That is why we pre-announced our plans to raise national insurance and the top rate of income tax alongside efficiency savings".

4) Labour should have ruled out raising VAT before the election.  "I believe increasing VAT is plain wrong and during the election we should have said that loud and clear."

5) Labour should now either support or oppose a VAT rise.  "...to avoid taking a principled stand, either for or against a rise, and to remain silent on the issue, would repeat the mistake we made at the election, even if the money markets do applaud George Osborne for raising VAT".

All this gives rise to the following questions -

1) If Labour makes a "principled stand" for a VAT rise in the budget (assuming such an increase takes place), how is this consistent with a VAT rise being "plain wrong"?

2) If Labour makes a "principled stand" against a VAT rise in the budget, can it explain why it didn't rule out such an increase before the election?

3) Who's to blame for Labour's failure to make such a "principled stand" before the election?  Is it Alistair Darling, against whom the "forces of hell" were famously unleashed?  (And who unleashed those forces, by the way?)

4) Since Labour "has to be clear about the need to reduce the deficit", would Balls, as Labour leader, set out any spending cuts to help do so?  If so, what are they, and why aren't they mentioned in his article?

5) Since raising national insurance and the top rate of tax alone wouldn't substantially reduce the deficit, would Balls, as Labour leader, set out any other tax rises to help to do so?  If so, what are they, and why aren't they mentioned in his article?

I admire Balls' brains (yes: he's bright), his energy, his determination, and the way he's adapted to opposition better than any of his front bench colleagues - setting vigorously about trying to beat up Michael Gove (see, for example, here and here).

His piece may or may not help his leadership campaign.  But I just don't see how it helps his wider credibility.

If he'd unambiguously recommended opposing any VAT rise in the budget, the piece would have been tactically smart, strategically dubious. (Because such a stance raises the question: what tax would you raise instead?)  None the less, it would have at least have been forward-looking.

Instead, it doesn't make a recommendation at all - and is thus tactically confused, strategically incomprehensible.  And it isn't even forward-looking: the Telegraph's headline - "Labour lost by failing on VAT" - reflects this.

As Danny Finkelstein noted here, the most difficult question for Conservatives in elections is: what spending will you cut?  And the most difficult for Labour is: what taxes will you hike?

At the next election, David Cameron will be looking to re-run the "tax bombshell" campaign of 1992 - with which he was intimately involved in the Conservative Research Department. He can hum the tune off by heart. He knows the words without fail.

Until or unless Labour can close the question down and head the campaign off, its chances of winning next time are substantially reduced.  And unless or until Balls grasps this, one can't help viewing him as a great comic creation.

Paul Goodman

Michael Fallon forces Alistair Darling to admit that his NI rise will cost jobs

He had to press the Chancellor EIGHT times but Michael Fallon MP did get Mr Darling to admit that Labour's planned increase in National Insurance Contributions would cost jobs. Mr Darling eventually said the impact was "manageable" while by questioned by the Treasury Select Committee.

George Osborne jumped on the Chancellor's admission and called on him to tell the whole truth:

“Alistair Darling admitted to the Treasury Select Committee that his National Insurance tax rise would cost jobs. How many? There must be an internal Treasury estimate – so what is it? Either he knows how many jobs his national insurance tax rise will cost and he is not telling us – or he doesn’t care.”

The Federation of Small Businesses, reports The Sun, has warned the increase will cost 57,000 jobs in small firms alone.

Labour aim to present this election as a choice between strong Brown and weak Cameron

The Guardian has an interview with Gordon Brown this morning.

We learn that he will keep Darling as Chancellor if he wins the election. Sensible given yesterday's ComRes finding that the Brown/Darling team enjoys a modest lead over Cameron/Osborne when it comes to running the economy... although as we reveal on today's front page an Angus-Reid poll suggests in a straight Brown V Cameron comparison, the Tories win on the economy.

We also learn that Labour will have five pledges at the heart of their campaign; to secure the economy, make it hi-tech, raise living standards, protect services, and strengthen community fairness (BBC). All very vague and much less measurable than pledges from previous elections.

For me the most interesting snippet from the interview is this quote from Brown:

"'Show me a soldier who has made no mistakes and I will show you a soldier who has won no battles.' You have got to be honest that sometimes you do make mistakes. But equally if you are determined to do something, if you've got strong willpower, then you are going to push things forward."

That's how Labour plans to frame this election; Brown as the strong man - flawed but with the will power to get Britain through difficult times. In contrast Cameron will be presented as untested and weak.  That framing will be imposed on all issues, particularly the economy. You can be sure that Mandelson, Campbell, Whelan and the other Labour operators have the discipline to stick to that framing.

Tim Montgomerie