A year ago, I was praying for the parliamentary summer recess to give some cover to an obviously flailing Labour leadership, which didn't seem to be able to get the public's attention and make its arguments effectively. Ed Miliband seemed to be a nice guy but lacked the gravitas to be PM (despite my hopes of 9 months before).
Then the hacking scandal (finally) broke into the public conciousness, amd Ed made his historic demand for a full public enquiry (resisted until the last moment by Cameron and Clegg, it should be noted), and since then hasn't really put a foot wrong:
- the May election results were very good for Labour, except for Ken losing to Boris (but by a much tighter margin than expected). And bear in mind, Ken Livingstone was selected before Ed became leader. All in all, it showed that the people were willing to listen to Labour again, a remarkable result 2 years after losing power. It usually takes at least a parliamentary term (the exception being 1970-74, which highlights the parallels between Cameron's government and Heath's).
- Ed has repeatedly rattled Cameron in the Commons, and the new members of the front bench team are beginning to find their feet.
- Labour has helped to cut the reputation of Osborne to shreds, especially over the Budget. The performance of the Economy has tanked, which Labour predicted it would if the Tories cut public spending without a plan for growth.
- Cameron's mask has slipped totally, and he is increasingly seen as being out of touch and/or uncaring. He has done more to re-establish the Tories as the Nasty Party than any number of Labour PPBs could ever have done.
- He has secured his position against the Blairites in the Party (think how the Murdoch affair would have played differently if David had been in charge).
All in all, a good year's work. Much more to be done over the next 3 years, though!
I think it will be the Tories who will be relieved when the recess comes this year.
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