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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow

Miliband rejects calls for his resignation: Politics Live blog

Ed Miliband has rejected calls for his resignation
Ed Miliband has rejected calls for his resignation Photograph: Owen Humphreys/PA

Summary

  • Ed Miliband has rejected suggestions that he should resign. He spoke out after long-running concerns about the state of the party in the polls, and the quality of his leadership, came to a head with a headline report on the BBC’s World at One saying at least two backbench Labour MPs had formally told the chair of the parliamentary Labour party, David Watts, that Miliband should resign. The mini-crisis was also fuelled by the New Statesman publishing two highly critical articles about Miliband this week, and by a suggestion in the Times today that a letter calling for Miliband’s resignation was circulating amongst backbenchers. Miliband said that the stories were “nonsense”, that the question of resigning did not arise and that he was focusing on “the things that matter to the country”. Given the absence of any clear alternative to Miliband who could take over by consent, without a leadership contest, the prospect of any real challenge to his leadership seems extremely slight. But the stories do reflect genuine concerns in the party that Miliband has failed to convince voters that he is a future prime minister.

That’s all from me for today.

Thanks for the comments.

David Gauke, the Conservative Treasury minister, thinks it is significant that Paul Kenny has spoken up for Ed Miliband.

Is it a leadership crisis, a “leadership crisis” or a so-called “leadership crisis”? The latter, according to Mark Ferguson, who has written a rather good blog about it for LabourList.

Here’s an excerpt.

It’s clearly worrying that there are MPs who are questioning Miliband’s leadership so close to the election – it’s eerily reminiscent of the failed attempts to remove Gordon Brown from office before the last election. But at present this is a distraction for Miliband – and a damaging story which won’t do his polling any good – rather than a genuine threat to his leadership.

So at what point would Miliband have genuine cause for concern over being ousted? There are three key markers for this to become a major story, in ascending order:

  • If several MPs are willing to publicly call for him to go – MPs touring the TV studios doing that would be damaging and would exacerbate the situation.
  • If the number of MPs calling for Miliband to go reaches double figures – If we start getting twenty or thirty MPs calling for Miliband to go, his position would look far less certain. But that looks highly unlikely at present, we’re nowhere near this becoming a mainsteam viewpoint in the PLP, it’s still in the fringes.
  • If the Shadow Cabinet were in open revolt – if members of Miliband’s Shadow Cabinet were to call for Miliband to go, his position would likely be under threat. But that’s unlikely to happen, as there’s no desire for a leadership change within the Shadow Cabinet.

Updated

On Ed Miliband’s Twitter feed it’s business as usual.

Paul Kenny, the GMB general secretary, has also dismissed the idea that Ed Miliband faces a leadership challenge as nonsense. Or “utter nonsense”, to quote Kenny directly.

A couple of unnamed MPs seem to be more worried about saving their own rear ends than fighting for a government that can save the NHS and the country.

The SNP is enjoying Ed Miliband’s difficulties. The party has just sent out a news release saying a YouGov poll on Sunday (pdf) showed that 0% of people in Scotland thought he was performing very well. (That was from a weighted sample of 157 people in Scotland. The proportion of people across Britain thinking he was doing very well was 3%.)

This is from the SNP MSP James Dornan.

It is unfortunate for Ed Miliband that zero per cent of people in Scotland think he would be good in a crisis, because that is undoubtedly what he finds himself in.

With Labour collapsing in the polls in Scotland, and the bitter infighting in their Scottish ‘branch office’ intensifying, it is little surprise that nobody in Scotland thinks Ed Miliband is doing ‘very well’ as leader.

“The latest opinion polling is bad for Ed Miliband across the UK, but it is even worse in Scotland where zero per cent of people think he is doing very well and he has his worst approval ratings anywhere in the UK.

As Labour’s internal warfare continues to rage, its reputation amongst the Scottish public is sinking like a stone.

Here are the full quotes from Ed Miliband. He was speaking to the BBC.

When asked if he accepted that MPs were calling for him to step down, he said: “I don’t accept that this matter arises.” The story was “nonsense”, he said.

This is nonsense. My focus, and the Labour party’s focus, is on the country, and the things that matter to the country. That’s the cost of living crisis, the NHS, it’s the prospects for the next generation. That’s my focus here in Northampton and that’s our focus across the country ...

There are huge issues that the country faces, issues of why the country doesn’t work for most people. That is what we are determined to change. We are determined to be a one-term opposition that changes that.

Ed Miliband talking to the BBC
Ed Miliband talking to the BBC Photograph: BBC News

Miliband rejects calls for his resignation.

Ed Miliband has responded to call for him to step down. He’s not going to resign, he says.

I’ll post the full quote shortly.

Summary

Updated

Here is some Twitter comment on the Labour leadership mini-crisis. (It is certainly not a full-blown crisis. As Sunny Hundal points out, two unhappy MPs doesn’t amount to much - see 1.07pm - and a close reading of the Times suggests that the “letter” - see 12.23pm - may just be a figment of the collective imagination.)

From the New Statesman’s George Eaton

From the Daily Mirror’s Kevin Maguire

From the Labour Left thinktank

From Gerry Hassan, the academic

Labour dismisses leadership threat reports as 'noises off'

Labour sources dispute the BBC claim that Ed Miliband will be making a statement about his leadership this afternoon. (See 1.08pm.) What’s actually happening is that Miliband is doing a TV clip on bus regulation on a regional visit, a source said. The source went on:

This party has been united in our determination to be a one-term opposition for the last four years. We will not led any noises off distract us.

A Scottish Labour leadership election round-up

  • Jim Murphy has said that he would make raising wages a priority if elected Labour leader. In a statement he said:

If I am elected Scottish Labour leader I will campaign every day and in many ways to make sure hard working families in Scotland get the pay rise they deserve.

I won’t wait until 2016. I will start immediately by bringing employers, trade unions and councils together to campaign for the Living Wage in every community in Scotland.

Too many families in Scotland live in poverty even though they work every hour they can. To rely on food banks or pay day lenders just to get by whilst working full time is an outrage.

There’s a moral case for introducing a Living Wage, which is that people deserve a decent wage for a decent day’s work.

  • Nicola Sturgeon, who is going to take over as Scotland’s first minister shortly, has said she does not fear Murphy as an opponent. When asked by the New Statesman if she was frightened of Murphy, she laughed and replied: “Not in the slightest. Not at all, actually. On the contrary.”

Andrew Harrop, general secretary of the Fabian Society, told the World at One a few minutes ago that there was “a nervousness, a jitteriness” in that Labour party, but that he had not detected any support for a leadership challenge. There was no alternative candidate, he said, and it would not be in the party’s interests to have a leadership election so close to the general election.

Ed Miliband is the leader and the party needs to collectively get its confidence together and back him, and Ed needs to up his game as well.

But Harrop conceded that Miliband was holding the party back.

At the moment Ed is a hindrance to the Labour party’s success, but people are still saying they prefer a Labour government to a Conservative government in the polls and they know that Ed Miliband is the leader.

A Rochester byelection round-up

Here’s a Rochester byelection round-up.

Mark Reckless, its candidate in the Rochester and Strood by-election, courted controversy as he referred to the growing numbers of migrants trying to make the dangerous voyage across the Mediterranean Sea to Europe. Italian patrols that have rescued thousands of Africans from drowning have been scrapped.

Mr Reckless, a former Tory MP who defected to Ukip, said: “Whatever people say about Gaddafi, one thing is he didn’t allow those boats to come across.

“He had an agreement with Italy that stopped it. Since he’s gone we have no idea what’s going on in Libya, it’s too dangerous for anyone to go there.”

More than 100 Conservative MPs are yet to make a campaigning visit to the Kent seat, less than an hour’s travel from Parliament, despite David Cameron’s demand that every MP makes at least three visits. They include five ministers.

Michael Gove, the Chief Whip, is now “naming and shaming” refuseniks in daily “Roll of Honour” emails, which list how many visits each MP has made.

“If a few people feel embarrassed by the email, then so be it,” said one loyalist.

  • The Tory MP Ben Gummer has met a Rochester vote with an interesting tale about Reckless.

Ed Miliband is going to respond to the leadership concerns in a statement later, the BBC reports.

Sunny Hundal has a good point about the BBC’s lead.

At least two Labour MPs have formally called for Miliband to go, BBC says

On the World at One the BBC is saying at least two Labour MPs have formally asked for Ed Miliband to be be replaced.

This from the BBC’s Ross Hawkins.

Some Labour MPs have long insisted in private that the party would be better off without Ed Miliband. Now the BBC has been told that they have gone to the chair of the parliamentary Labour party, Dave Watts, to make their views known. One backbencher said that he had called for the leader to go and been told by a colleague that he had done likewise.

McBride says Miliband seems out of touch with ordinary people

And here are the Damian McBride quotes from earlier on the Daily Politics (see 12.13pm) when he said Ed Miliband acts as though life revolves around Hampstead.

  • McBride said Miliband did not seem to be in touch with the concerns of ordinary people.

[Miliband] can’t do much about the fact that he comes from Hampstead. But he can do something about the fact that he’s constantly acting as though life revolves around what goes on in Hampstead. There’s no sense of getting out there and understanding what ordinary people are feeling, including about himself and trying to address that personal problem that he’s got ...

It’s not his voice that is connecting. He may have found some politcies that resonate like the energy freeze, some of the sort of stuff on tax, but his voice is not the one that’s resonating.

  • McBride said Miliband’s advisers should find a different way of handling the Miliband character issue.

Their take on this is that we’re not seeing the real him. I think they [think] maybe if he was on Graham Norton we’d all start appreciating the humorous side of Ed. I don’t think it’s the right strategy.

I think if he’s got any hope it’s just about coming out and acknowledging what his weaknesses are and saying maybe we need a different style of prime minister, we need a different style of politician.

McBride seems to have forgotten that Miliband tried this approach with a speech earlier this year.

I’ve taken the quotes from PoliticsHome.

This is what Damian McBride said when he was asked on the Daily Politics if he believed the Times report about a possible letter being circulated by Labour backbenchers out to replace Ed Miliband.

It is difficult to know because the paranoia that comes out of the Miliband camp is so rank that [they see] Ed plots even when there are none. But I think the mood is pretty black in Labour, and certainly since the party conference the mood has got blacker. These are wild times.

Damian McBride
Damian McBride Photograph: Stefan Wermuth/Reuters

Ed Balls dismisses Labour leadership challenge report as 'nonsense'

Today’s Times (paywall) claims that Labour shadow cabinet ministers fear that backbenchers are circulating a letter calling for Ed Miliband to step aside as leader.

Shadow cabinet ministers admitted fears that backbenchers were circulating a letter asking the Labour leader to stand aside for the good of the party. Challenging Mr Miliband’s critics to “put up or shut up”, a loyalist said: “Let’s see if they’ve got the names or not.”

Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, has just told the BBC that he thought this was nonsense.

I think this is all nonsense, to be honest. I’ve no idea about any of this. All I know is that everybody in the Labour party, from Ed Miliband down, is focused on tackling the cost of living crisis, building an economy which works for working people, reforming Europe but not walking away, getting tough and fair controls on immigration, saving our national health service - that’s what Labour’s for. It’s the Conservative party which are riven and divided and defecting, left, right and centre. Labour will stay united.

Ed Balls
Ed Balls Photograph: Linda Nylind/LInda Nylind

In the Times (paywall) Sam Coates and David Taylor also claim that David Axelrod, Labour’s American election consultant is “exasperated” about not being listened to.

The secrecy around Mr Axelrod’s salary and his lack of clear contribution is causing increasing unhappiness in Labour circles, and the matter was raised on Tuesday by union representatives on the national executive committee, Labour’s ruling body.

Mr Axelrod is coming to Britain soon and is understood to be preparing a statement in support of the Labour leader. Labour sources say that Mr Axelrod and his team have ventured that the solutions offered to date have been “palliative”.

A number of Labour sources suggested that Mr Axelrod had shown signs of unhappiness on conference calls and as part of email chains. He does not like the in-fighting and disorganisation, wants a more optimistic message and does not want Mr Miliband to be bogged down in narrow policy issues.

A senior Labour figure said: “There are pretty much weekly phone calls but my understanding is the advice is pretty much not welcome.” Another said that Mr Axelrod was “not being listened to and is exasperated”.

Ed Miliband and David Axelrod (right)
Ed Miliband and David Axelrod (right) Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

Updated

Damian McBride, Gordon Brown’s former communications chief, is on the BBC’s Daily Politics talking about Ed Miliband.

Karren Brady takes her seat in the Lords

Karren Brady taking her seat in the Lords
Karren Brady taking her seat in the Lords Photograph: PA/PA

Karren Brady, the businesswoman and Apprentice star, has taken her seat in the House of Lords as a Conservative peer. The Press Association has filed a story.

Businesswoman Karren Brady was accompanied into the House of Lords by her television co-star Lord Sugar as she took her seat in the upper chamber.

Baroness Brady, who features alongside Labour peer Lord Sugar on the BBC show The Apprentice, has been appointed a Conservative member of the House.

During the short ceremony of introduction she was flanked by Lord Sugar and Conservative Party co-chairman Lord Feldman of Elstree.

All three were dressed in ermine robes as Lady Brady pledged her allegiance to the Queen.

She was introduced as “Baroness Brady, of Knightsbridge in our city of Westminster”, but will be known simply as Baroness Brady.

Lord Feldman, Karren Brady and Lord Sugar as businesswoman and television star Brady takes her seat in the House of Lords.
Lord Feldman, Karren Brady and Lord Sugar as businesswoman and television star Brady takes her seat in the House of Lords. Photograph: PA/PA

Updated

Today Danny Alexander, the chief secretary to the Treasury, is giving a speech saying petrol and diesel distributors should cut their prices given the recent decline in the global oil price.

George Osborne, the chancellor, has been making the same point too.

Our message today is very clear: the oil price has fallen, but we expect that to be passed on to people at the petrol stations as they fill up their cars. We expect the oil companies to do this and we will be watching very carefully to make sure that they do.

For the record, here are today’s YouGov GB polling figures.

Labour: 33% (down 1 from YouGov yesterday)

Conservatives: 32% (no change)

Ukip: 17% (up 2)

Lib Dems: 7% (no change)

Greens: 7% (up 1)

Labour lead: 1 point (down 1)

Government approval: -25

According to Electoral Calculus, this would give Labour a majority of 6.

MPs to vote on the European arrest warrant on Monday

William Hague, the leader of the Commons, has just told MPs that the vote on opting back in to the European arrest warrant will be held on Monday. Around 80 or more Tory MPs are expected to rebel. There would be a full day’s debate, Hague said.

Angela Eagle, the shadow leader of the Commons, asked Hague why MPs would be voting on this before the statutory instrument (SI) containing the measure had been approved by the joint committee on statutory instruments. The SI only went to the committee yesterday and it will not finish considering it until after Monday. Hague conceded that this was unusual, but he said it was “not unprecedented” for MPs to vote on an SI before it had cleared the committee.

Lord Hill, Britain’s new European commissioner, used an interview on the Today programme this morning to appeal for “calm” in the row between London and Brussels over the EU’s demand for an extra £1.7bn from the UK.

It seems to me that this is one of those classic examples you get from time to time where something that a group of people think are technical matters suddenly, and in this case for perfectly understandable reasons, become highly political.

The sensible thing now is to try to calm the situation down, and to look at the facts, and to look at a practical solution to the challenges that various member states face.

Lord Hill
Lord Hill Photograph: ELM/Rex Features/ELM/Rex Features

The Department for Work and Pensions has this morning published its regular figures for the extent of fraud and error in the benefits system.

They show the government lost £1.2bn from fraud. That amounts to 0.7% of spending on benefits.

The 19-page report is here (pdf).

And here is the key chart.

Benefit fraud and error figures
Benefit fraud and error figures Photograph: DWP

Peter Grigg from Who Benefits?, a group that campaigns on behalf of people who receive benefits at some point, said these figures showed that people thought the amount lost from benefit fraud was 34 times higher than it actually was.

The vast majority of people who receive support from benefits claim correctly and need this support because they are seriously ill or disabled, caring for a loved one, unable to find work or in work but struggling to get by on low pay. Where fraud is found it needs to be dealt with, but it accounts for less than one per cent of the total benefit bill.

Yet public perception of benefit fraud is 34 times higher than the reality. Our recent research revealed that hundreds of thousands of ordinary people experience discrimination and even verbal and physical abuse simply because they are supported by benefits .

Nick Clegg's Call Clegg phone-in - Summary

Here are the key points from Nick Clegg’s phone-in.

  • Clegg said he wanted proportional representation for councils to stop one-party rule in local government. In the north of England Labour dominated councils, he said, and that made it “complacent ... flabby and unimaginative”.

I passionately believe the long-term answer to this problem of one-party rule in the north of England, in effect the problem of one-party rule anywhere, is - guess what? - to have a proper democratic electoral system in local elections. I think we should have a proportional system, single transferable vote, for local elections because it means you don’t get these rotten boroughs and these areas which are just completely dominated, almost invariably in the north of England, by Labour, by one party.

  • He said that he was “reeling with shock” at the revelations that were coming out about the extent of child abuse in the UK.
  • He said he was increasingly minded to support a law making the reporting of child abuse suspicions mandatory.
  • He said he would like to see the Tower of London poppies display carry on for a bit longer than planned.
  • He said he was in principle in favour of introducing recall for mayors and police commissioners.
  • He rejected a claim that Tony Blair was blocking publication of the Iraq inquiry. (But he also declined to come to Blair’s defence when a caller called him “the most vile human being in the country”.)
  • He said he wanted to promote the north of England as a tourist destination for rich Americans.
Nick Clegg hosting his Call Clegg phone-in
Nick Clegg hosting his Call Clegg phone-in Photograph: LBC

Q: Should there be a public inquiry into what politicians knew about the Rotherham child abuse scandal?

Clegg says this is not just a problem in Rotherham. He says he is “reeling with shock” as the lid gets lifted on the problem. It just seems to get worse and worse.

Q: Has Theresa May’s handling of the inquiry been shambolic?

Clegg says the Home Office needs to find a chair who has the confidence of victims’ groups.

Q: How embarrassing is this?

It is not good, says Clegg.

Q: Do you think mandatory reporting is the answer?

Clegg says he is increasingly coming to this view.

There are already guidelines saying professionals should report allegations of child abuse. But there is a case for making this a legal duty. The government is consulting on this, he says.

Q: Should the Tower of London poppy display carry on past Remembrance Sunday?

Clegg says it is very moving. It has struck a chord with the public he says.

He suggests the display should be kept going for a little longer. But people have paid for the poppies, he says, and expect to receive them.

Q: Should Lutfur Rahman, the mayor of Tower Hamlets, be removed from his job?

Clegg says MPs are debating recall. If that principle applies to MPs, it should apply to other elected politicians too.

He says municipal politics can give people massive majorities, and massive amounts of power.

There should be a mechanism to unseat people like Rahman, he says.

Q: But should ministers be able to remove him?

Clegg says it should be a matter for the public.

He says the same problem occured with Shaun Wright, the South Yorkshire police commissioner.

There should be a way of allowing recall for people like this, although legally it could be a bit tricky, he says.

Q: How do you feel about wearing the “This is what a feminist looks like” t-shirt?

Clegg says it was a colourful way of making a serious point.

Q: It was made by slave labour.

Clegg says there is an argument between the Fawcett Society and the Mail on Sunday about that.

He says it is important that men and women are treated equally.

Q: What did Norman Baker achieve in government?

A lot, says Clegg. He helped police forces fight crime. He pushed female genital mutilation up the agenda. He had an impact on drug policy.

Q: Baker did not like working with Theresa May. What’s it like working with David Cameron?

Clegg says he and Cameron have a perfectly professional relationship.

The Conservatives are lurching to the right, he says.

The caller says we will never get to the bottom of this. Tony Blair is responsible, he says. He is a “war criminal” and “the most vile human being in the country”.

Clegg says, until we see the report, we will not know whether it has been doctored or not. He says the caller should wait until he’s seen the report before passing judgment.

Q: When are we going to get the Chilcott report? And, if we don’t get an uncensored one, why?

Clegg says it is up to Sir John Chilcott to decide when he publishes his report. The government is offering him the help he needs.

Q: Why is it taking so long?

Clegg says Chilcott has to go through an unprecedented number of documents. People referred to in the report have a right to reply, and to challenge it.

Q: How redacted will it be?

Clegg says it will be more open than anything that has proceeded it. But some things will not be included.

Clegg says he is the leading advocate of transparency.

And he says he knows that Chilcott has had access to all the documents he wants.

Q: Why is Tony Blair blocking it?

Clegg says he is not sure that is the case.

This was the worst, most fateful foreign policy decision taken, certainly since Suez.

Q: Do you recognise the claim that immigrants have added £20bn to the economy?

Clegg says that is the figure in this week’s report. No doubt another report will provide a different figure. But he does think immigrants contribute to the economy.

Q: How much are immigrants costing people in the UK because of factors like lost jobs?

Clegg says the caller is referring to the report that came out this week. He wants a balanced approach to immigration, he says.

Q: But we have signed papers that won’t allow this? You can’t stop people coming into the UK?

Clegg says that is right. But 1.5m Britons work in the rest of Europe.

Q: We used to pay £8 an hour for our staff. Now we can pay £6.50, because we can hire people at that rate. (He has a factory where he bottles up chemicals, he says.)

Clegg says we need to respect the minimum wage.

Q: All I hear is ‘we must do this, we must do this’. Immigrants are coming over with high qualifications. We should ensure Britons have those skills. In Greece they have free higher education.

Clegg says the government is doing things about this. It is expanding apprenticeships.

Labour lost control of the immigration system, he says. Immigrants took new jobs. But now the figures show that the vast majority of new jobs are being taken by Britons.

We need to make sure that we have proper border controls, and proper training. The government is addressing this, he says.

Q: How much money is going into this initiative you are talking about today?

Clegg says that will be for George Osborne to announce in the autumn statement.

Nick Ferrari says he understands Clegg has £10m to spend. That will not make people come to Burnley instead of Bali, he says.

Clegg says he favours PR to stop a single party dominating local government.

On the £10m point, he says Ferrari is just talking about an initiative to help the 20 tourist bodies dealing with the north of England work more effectively together.

He wants well-heeled American tourists coming to the north, he says.

Nick Clegg's Call Clegg phone-in

Q: How will the Northern Futures conference help encourage devolution to the north?

Nick Clegg says he is doing the phone-in from Leeds today. He is attending the Northern Futures conference, which will examine a range of ideas to improve the north. It is “very exciting”, he says. One of the ideas it will look at is transport. There are “Pacer” trains in the north of England, but there is nothing pacy about them at all.

There is a real consenus in the north, he says. People are working across parties to deal with the north-south gap.

Q: Won’t this lead to a one-party system in the north of England? And that one party will be Labour.

Clegg says that is a problem. He is the only non-Labour MP in south Yorkshire.

It’s a bit patchy this morning. There’s no one big political story dominating the news, but there’s still quite a lot of politics around.

Nick Clegg will be hosting his Call Clegg phone-in soon. He has already been giving interviews this morning, and two key lines have emerged.

Road and rail investments across across the north of England, including the promise of a fully upgraded and electrified network between Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield by 2025, are likely to be central vote-winning features of the December autumn statement, the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, will suggest on Thursday.

Extra capital spending in the next parliament is one of the few spending commitments the coalition parties are equipped to make, and his speech suggests solid announcements will be made in the autumn statement after months of speculation, lobbying by council leaders and hints by cabinet ministers.

Clegg backs HS1 and HS2 but feels they are long-term commitments most likely to benefit the south-east, and would like to see these rail investment commitments matched by shorter-term commitments focused on the north.

He will argue: “London and the south-east has had billions of transport investment over recent years from HS1 to Crossrail to the Northern Line extension. The perfectly reasonable requests I have been hearing from the north are basics that are needed if we are to create a true economic hub in the north of England.”

  • Clegg has accused the Conservatives of a “lurch to the right”, while insisting that that coalition will survive until May. He told BBC Breakfast:

If you think back to what the Conservative Party was saying about itself when we went into coalition - they said they cared about the environment - they clearly don’t; they said they wouldn’t bang on about Europe - it’s all they bang on about these days. There’s been this right-wing lurch by one of the parties in the coalition Government, by the Conservatives.

We, the Liberal Democrats, remain anchored in the centre ground, but that right-wing lurch by the Conservatives, of course it creates some tension, but it doesn’t mean the coalition Government is not going to see through its term of office through to the finishing line in May of next year.

And here are some other stories around from overnight.

I’m going to unblock the system to make sure that our operation is serving all of those fantastic candidates and our fantastic front bench and Ed as our leader ... We always need to review these things and make sure that they are working at their very best and I’m absolutely sure that with some new energy and vigour into the system we can make sure that all of our candidates, our front bench, our shadow cabinet, are getting the best service that they want.

She also said that she wanted her frontbench colleagues be “more visible” - and that that went for Ed Miliband too

I’m going to get Ed out there more as well because I think he is a fantastic asset out in the country, meeting people directly, talking to them directly and not seeing things through the prism of the media down here who don’t always give him the best ride.

  • Ucatt, the construction workers’ union, has said that it is backing Neil Findley for Scottish Labour leader and Katy Clark for deputy leader.

Here’s the agenda for the day.

9am: Nick Clegg hosts his Call Clegg phone-in.

10am: Clegg attends the Northern Futures summit.

10.30am: Danny Alexander, the chief secretary to the Treasury, gives a speech in Aberdeen. He will urge petrol and diesel distributors to cut prices.

11am: Karren Brady takes her seat in the Lords as a Conservative peer.

I’ve got a meeting this afternoon, so I will just be blogging until around 2pm today.

If you want to follow me on Twitter, I’m on @Andrew Sparrow.

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