Ed Miliband launches five point pledge card to help families pay their bills

By Tim Montgomerie
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The five pledges are:

1. Stop the Government’s raid on pensioners and block its £40,000 tax cut to 14,000 millionaires
2. End rail rip-offs by capping fares increases on every route
3. Force the energy firms to cut gas and electricity bills for 4 million over-75s
4. Stop excessive fees charged by banks and low cost airlines
5. Defend working families from raid on their tax credits by reversing Govt’s pension tax break for those earning over £150k

This is the message that Labour will be taking on to the doorstep for the local elections campaigns. The latest YouGov poll has Labour opening up its biggest lead since the election - 43% over 33%. The last time the elections were fought the Conservatives were on 44% and Labour on 24%.

Over at Sky Jon Craig looks at the landscape for the local elections:

"Labour will hope to take control of Eric Pickles' city, Bradford, and Birmingham and perhaps Derby, Reading and Plymouth. The Tories may lose control of Solihull, Dudley and Walsall in the West Midlands, but may take control of Swindon. Their Coalition partners the Liberal Democrats could lose control in Eastleigh, Chris Huhne's constituency, and Cambridge."

The Sun praises Yvette Cooper MP for "speaking our language on crime"

By Tim Montgomerie
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John Prescott took to Twitter yesterday to question whether David Miliband (last week) and Yvette Cooper (this week) should be writing for Rupert Murdoch's Sun on Sunday.

Perhaps the Labour grown-ups want to reach The Sun's five million readers?

Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper wins a big spread (right) in Britain's newest newspaper for attacking the Coalition's law and order credentials.

Her second reward for ignoring the Prescott boycott was these warm words from The Sun's leader-writers:

"David Cameron's declaration of war on Britain's knife crime scourge won him support from actress Brooke Kinsella — whose brother was stabbed to death — and The Sun. Yet on his watch, knife thugs are spared jail, while robberies at knifepoint rose by ten per cent in the year to the end of September. Labour's Yvette Cooper is speaking our language on crime. It's no surprise to see her cutting the PM's poll lead on law and order."

The Sun also publishes polling which suggests the Tory advantage over Labour on law and order has shrunk from +23% to +12%. Polling published last year by Lord Ashcroft suggested the NHS and crime were biggest barriers between the Conservative Party and winning the next election.

This is the story that Mrs Cooper tells in her article:

"Meeting police officers in the Midlands last month, I was told a shocking story. A 999 call had come in about a hit-and-run but the nearest officer was 45 minutes away. When the constable finally arrived, blue light flashing, the culprit was long gone. Angry residents started a slow handclap. Police forces are struggling to cope with cuts of 16,000 officers thanks to this government. And communities are paying the price. That is David Cameron's law and order policy: Crime up, police down."

With barely 10% of all departmental spending cuts implemented we will get many more hard case stories like this from Labour in the years to come.

Now pandering Miliband poses as a Euro-sceptic

By Matthew Barrett
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Ed Miliband and his supporters boast of his willingness to stand up to the big, vested interests, the corporate behemoths who delight in victimising hard-working people. However, his attacks on rail companies for increasing fares, on energy companies for high fuel prices, or on Fred Goodwin's knighthood don't quite feel right. They suggest carefully-researched focus-grouped lines of attack rather than real outrage.

Miliband's appearance on ITV's Daybreak this morning may be the worst example of this pandering yet. He tried to pass himself off as some sort of Euro-sceptic:

“I’m very concerned about what David Cameron has done because he trumpeted last December that he got a great deal for Britain, he’d protected us and everything and the way that Europe was going to go about this treaty, what they were going to do wasn’t going to affect Britain. Now he seems to have sold us down the river on a lot of things [my emphasis] so I’m going to be asking him in the House of Commons today what exactly has he agreed to, what protections has he got for Britain. I take a simple view – he would have been better off staying at the table and negotiating for Britain, rather than actually pretending that he had made great progress and then failing to do so.”

Ed Miliband is a conventional Europhile, and it's hard to see how any serious person could view this "sold us down the river" attack with anything other than amusement. Last month, Miliband was condemning the Prime Minister's "catastrophic mistake" in exercising Britain's veto. Now he's suggesting that he would have gone further in demanding powers back for Britain. Miliband is plumbing the depths of opportunistic politics. He transparently does not believe what he is saying about Europe (or perhaps he hasn't decided what he believes). He should resist the urge to attack the Government on every issue. It would save him a lot of trouble, since he's set himself up today as an easy target for "flip-flopper" assaults.

How has Ed Miliband's sixth re-launch progressed so far?

By Matthew Barrett
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A week on from Ed Miliband's sixth re-launch, it would be timely to review his progress. Has he managed to persuade the public of his credibility at last? Has he managed to thrash the Coalition in the polls? Is his Party settled and united behind his leadership? It seems not. 

• Ed Balls' big policy speech hinted at Labour wishing to earn economic credibility: "In a speech to the Fabian Society on Saturday, Balls said he accepted every spending cut being imposed by the coalition and endorsed George Osborne's public sector pay freeze, adding that it might need to continue beyond the end of the current parliament."
• Ed Miliband then supported this stance: "Ed Miliband has backed his shadow chancellor, Ed Balls, saying he cannot promise to reverse any spending cut at this stage, and dismissed criticism of his own leadership as "part of the gig"."
• ...But at the same time, Miliband said Labour opposes the cuts the Coalition is making: "If Labour was in power now we wouldn't be making those changes. We wouldn't be cutting as far and as fast as the government."
• Perhaps this best explains what Miliband's position seems to be: "Labour's newly calibrated position is that it opposes some spending cuts, on the basis they slow recovery, but cannot promise to reinstate any of them ahead of an election."

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".

Launching the Do Not Underestimate Labour Association

By Tim Montgomerie
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Conservatives have had some fun at Ed Miliband's expense this week. Today's Sun revelled in Ed Miliband's "Blackbusters" gaffe. "Silly Mili", it laughed. Guido Fawkes relaunched Iain Martin's Don't Underestimate Ed Miliband Association as the Don't Unseat Ed Miliband Association. "Save Ed Miliband" is the three word prayer of every Number 10 strategist. Tories are probably right to think that "Odd Ed" is a very weak candidate for 10 Downing Street but if it's hard to regard the Labour leader as a potent threat we shouldn't think the same of the Labour Party as a whole.

It may have been a difficult week for the Labour leader but this was one of the more interesting weeks for the Labour Party as a whole. There were real signs that the reality-based wing of the party was finally asserting itself...

• First up was Liam Byrne with his argument that Labour needed to return to a welfare state that William Beveridge would actually recognise. Iain Duncan Smith's shadow argued against the spiralling housing benefit budget, the way the system maintained people in long-term unemployment and, third, insufficient encouragement of thrift. As George Eaton blogged there wasn't much substance in Byrne's article but it was a movement towards the ground occupied by the majority of the British people.
• Second was Shadow Defence Secretary Jim Murphy's identification of £5 billion of defence cuts. Mr Murphy rejected populism on spending and said that by spelling out the cuts his party would move towards credibility. Despite the claims of a Tory press release Mr Murphy did spell out cuts very clearly.
• Third - and least reported - was the Shadow Education Secretary's argument for a longer school day. The Coalition has already advocated this itself but Stephen Twigg's focus on how it could prepare more disadvantaged children for the world of the work was in tune with his party's best working class roots.

Ed Miliband missing from Feltham and Heston by-election leaflets

By Matthew Barrett
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Labour have put out seven pieces of campaign literature for the Feltham and Heston by-election so far. On how many does Ed Miliband have even a passport-sized photo? None. Ed Miliband is nowhere to be seen on Labour leaflets.

On Thursday, the Evening Standard's Craig Woodhouse reported:

"As the party leader battles low personal poll ratings, his opponents have seized on the fact his picture was missing from the election leaflet, though Labour insists he will feature in a second handout."

Well, Labour's latest leaflet has been released, and... still no sign of Ed Miliband. Readers can view the leaflet in full here (page 1 pdf) and here (page 2 pdf). 

A good reminder of why Labour's campaign may be reluctant to show their leader on campaign literature would be Lord Ashcroft's polling in the seat, which found, for example, that Cameron, Clegg and Osborne are more trusted on the economy than the Miliband-Balls team. 

Labour sides with the energy industry and Conservatives side with the energy consumer in hopeful shift of policy

By Matthew Barrett
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On Monday, Minister of State for Climate Change, Greg Barker announced that the Feed-in Tariff (FIT) level for solar installations would be reduced as a result of soaring take-up of FITs. FITs are subsidies for small-scale renewable electricity generation, paid for by ordinary households through their energy bills. The government has allocated an £867 million budget for FITs over the next four years. Without this limit, the cost of FITs to consumers would soar. 

Greg Barker has written to Labour's Caroline Flint, the Shadow Secretary of State for Energy, after she opposed the new measures to protect consumers from escalating subsidies for solar power.

Speaking in the House, Caroline Flint described the government's plan as "yet another example of a government which is out of touch", she called the move one that "threatens to strangle at birth the solar industry", and "a kick in the teeth for all those families who want to do the right thing by investing in solar". 

Labour Shadow Education Minister argues for the abolition of private schools

By Matthew Barrett
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Stephen Twigg, a Blairite reformer, was appointed to the Shadow Education brief in Ed Miliband's last reshuffle. As a former Education Minister who helped the drive for academy schools in the New Labour years, it was hoped his appointment might signal Ed Miliband's support for the Coalition's Free Schools programme. 

Indeed, Twigg said earlier this month:

"On free schools, I am saying that we need to apply a set of tests, that we are not going to take an absolute policy of opposing them. The tests should be: will the school raise standards for pupils and parents, will it contribute to a narrowing of the achievement gap between rich and poor and what is the wider impact of that school?"

Unfortunately, any credibility that Twigg may have in his brief will be undermined by the class war, anti-rich sentiments of his deputy, Kevin Brennan (pictured above), who last night spoke in favour of abolishing private schools - a proposal last seen in Labour's 1983 manifesto, aka the "longest suicide note in history".

Brennan was speaking at the Oxford Union, where he proposed the motion "This House Would Abolish Private Schools". Brennan had previously spoken in favour of the same motion in his debut speech to the Oxford Union - as a student.

Media reaction to Ed Miliband's Shadow Cabinet reshuffle

By Matthew Barrett
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Following Ed Miliband's Shadow Cabinet reshuffle this afternoon, we can take a look at some of the reaction in the press:

• The Spectator's James Forsyth: "The Labour reshuffle is an attempt to bring more energy and aggression into Ed Miliband's top team. It is also a recognition that the party has failed to cut through on public service reform, hence new shadows at both health and education. Chuka Umunna's rapid promotion to shadow Business Secretary will, I suspect, dominate coverage of the reshuffle."
• The Daily Telegraph's James Kirkup: "Lord (Stewart) Wood is an old Brown hand who was already in the shadow cabinet. He’s joined there by his former office mate Michael Dugher ... stepping up from Ed’s PPS. Jon Trickett, the new shadow for the Cabinet Office, was also Mr Brown’s PPS. ... And the most interesting move of all is the arrival of the new Labour Party Deputy Chair and Campaign Coordinator: ladies and gents, I give you Mr Tom Watson." 
• Former education advisor to Blair, Conor Ryan: "It is good news that Stephen Twigg, an unashamed fan of academies, has been appointed by Ed Miliband as his new shadow education secretary. Andy Burnham never really regained the initiative having started badly"
• Iain Dale: "On balance, I would say that this reshuffle does indeed make Ed Miliband’s team stronger, especially from the point of view of getting on the media. That may seem a false priority, but if a politician can’t get on the media in opposition, they’re not much cop."
• The Daily Mail's Tim Shipman: "Tom [Watson] and Michael [Dugher] will both deny that they were part of the 'forces of hell', the group of Brown briefers who spent as much time denouncing their colleagues as their political opponents. But it is a fact that they were both close to Damian McBride before he disgraced himself. It is also worth remembering that McBride was also a brilliant Westminster operator before he got carried away. These guys understand the dark arts and they are good at them."