By Bagehot
“WE ARE all entitled.” That was the message delivered, with quivering passion, by a woman attending a “People’s Policy Forum” hosted by the Labour Party in Nottingham today. In all, some 2,000 members of the public had responded to emailed invitations sent to more than 100,000 voters by party bosses.
The day-long forum was centred on a question and answer session with the leader, Ed Miliband. His mission was threefold: to show that Labour is listening mode after electoral defeat. To advance a case that the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition is playing “the politics of division” in a return to the 1980s. Finally, Mr Miliband had to prepare the ground for his appearance a day later on March 26th at a huge trade union rally against public spending cuts in central London: an event that carries risks for the Labour lea