A quiet day

I have been otherwise occupied today, and one of my main sources for the "daily news" had also taken the day off. Fortunately, there seems to have been little political news of interest today anyway.

One item of significance, though, concerns our good buddy Ed Miliband, who has claimed that in order to be credible he has to set out his own plans for dealing with Britain's deficit. Matthew Hancock MP has been looking into the state of play on this very matter.

We already know that Ed-M has committed to former Chancellor Alistair Darling's plan "as a starting point", and was thereby in need of finding some £44 billion per year.

On top of that, during the Labour leadership campaign (and possibly since, as well) he promised additional spending totally a further £33 billion. This makes £77 billion in all. So far, though, he has provided no inkling of where all this money is to be found, even for one year let alone for every year.

Normally, this soon after a General Election, an opposition leader doesn't really need to make policy decisions and lay out plans. However, our Ed has made a rod for his own back, so now needs to tackle this if, as he himself says, he is to achieve credibility. He is expected to lay out his plans (seemingly for higher taxes) on Sunday.


Anyway, that's it for today. Hopefully, after taking the weekend off, I shall be back on the daily news briefing on Monday. There will also be news on what has been decided on defence (I have some early indications, which are interesting!) and of course the much-anticipated spending review. Meanwhile, I shall post any separate items of note as per normal.