- Carwyn Jones calls for home rule all round
- Jim Murphy denounces exploitation of migrant workers in Qatar
- Douglas Alexander rejects Blairite hubris that UK can re-order the world
- Ed Ballss speech -Snap verdict
- Lunchtime summary
- Afternoon summary
There is a tension within the Labour Party at times between one that goes something like - well governments lose elections rather than oppositions winning and if we keep our mouth shut we might get over the line. Less is more, dodgy 1-0 away win.
And those who think we have just suffered arguably our worst defeat in 100 years, theres a crisis of social democracy across Western market economies, the last Labour government was somewhat disfigured by a few drive-by shootings and personal assassinations.
Conference, our party is returning. It turned a corner at Milton Keynes. Genuine commitments were made to support the Living Wage, to end the abuse of zero hours contracts, to respect pay review body awards, to repeal the Health Act committing Labour to Nye Bevans NHS, real progress.
[Miliband] has to address this. Its been the elephant in the room for all this conference. Acknowledge theres a problem, use that as an opportunity to imagine the kind of solution that we could have. This is a historic moment Labour must not miss.
Turning to leadership characteristics, David Cameron is seen as out of touch with ordinary people by significantly more than those who think the same of Ed Miliband (52% and 36% respectively).
With Ed Miliband set to make his final party conference speech before next years General Election, he is still struggling to carve out a positive image with the public. The Labour leader trails the prime minister in terms of being seen as statesman-like (9% think Miliband is statesmanlike, 37% say the same of David Cameron), competent (19% to 31%), intelligent (32% to 43%) and can get things done (17% to 31%).
All three party leaders have been summoned to give evidence to a Commons committee, my colleague Rajeev Syal reports.
David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg have been invited to give evidence to parliament on proposals to give both Scotland and England more say over how they are run.
The invitations, from the political and constitutional reform select committee, will place all three main party leaders in a difficult position. Each will have to decide whether to be questioned or send a proxy speaker, leaving themselves open to accusations that they have run away from a crucial constitutional issue.
Heres Natalie Bennett, the Green party leader, on Ed Balls speech.
Mr Balls offer amounts to a continuation of the Tory-Lib Dem approach of making the poor, disadvantaged and the young pay for the errors, fraud and excessive risk-taking of the bankers.
The offer of £8 minimum wage by 2020, compared to the Green Party offer of £10 by the same date made at our conference a couple of weeks ago, is simply inadequate.
Here are two blogs on Ed Ballss speech which are worth reading.
Bar a couple of jokes and a few brief moments which tugged at the heart-strings the lad in his constituency on a zero-hours contract and Balls mention of his own stammer the message was uncompromisingly, unremittingly tough.
On top of things weve heard previously like the mansion tax and compulsory jobs guarantee, we had the new pledge to cut child benefit in real terms until 2017, the prospect of earlier increases in the retirement age, warnings of further public sector pay restraint in the next Parliament, and yet more clamping down on hedge funds and the tax avoidance industry.
He wants to be seen to be austere and fiscally righteous - so that investors in Britain do not become anxious that Britains high public sector deficit, which is currently running at around 6% of national income, would persist for many years yet.
To put Britains deficit into perspective, that gap between revenues and spending is about 50% higher than Frances - which has a lower credit rating than the UKs and is widely seen to be in a much bigger economic mess than this country.
In his speech to the conferenceIvan Lewis, the shadow Northern Ireland secretary, announced that he was setting up a commission to consider how a Labour government could work with the Northern Ireland executive to finds ways of improving opportunities for people with no stake in the economy.
We are establishing an independent commission, with a remit to improve opportunities for those who currently have no stake in the economy and are at the margins of their communities.
It will consider how an incoming Labour government can most effectively make a difference working in partnership with The Northern Ireland Executive.
Delegates have now passed emergency resolutions dealing with low pay and work in the contemporary economy. They include a call for Labour to make the repair of earnings, especially for public service employees, and decisive action on closing pay gaps explicit missions of the next Labour government and for it to actively promote and support sectoral collective bargaining.
Heres the Guardian video of Ed Balls delivering his speech.
In the comments harleycx3 wants to know know more about what Robin Southwell, the head of Airbus, said in his speech. Here goes.
Southwell did not get into party politics. Instead, he focused on how important being in the EU was to a company like Airbus.
A belief in free trade is in our DNA, with the economic benefits which manifestly flow therefrom.
We do not believe that Airbus Group would have achieved what it has in the UK to date without this country being an integral part of the EU. Our operations here simply could not have grown to the scale and breadth that we enjoy today if we were unable to enjoy the unfettered movement of people, capital, resource and technology that the present arrangement provides.
My colleague Martin Kettle was in the hall for the Scottish speeches. He thinks Ed Miliband missed an opportunity
Having initially scheduled their debate on Scotland for Sunday of the annual conference, when relatively few delegates would be in town, Labour did a post-referendum rethink and at least had the nous to move the item to a more prominent place on the agenda, at the start of Monday afternoon. They managed to field not just the Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont and the shadow Scotland secretary Margaret Curran but Alistair Darling, head of Better Together. Ed Miliband was there on the platform too.
You might think that Labour would have used the opportunity to do two things. First to make the party feel good about the fact that, thanks to a huge effort of organisation, they had stopped the nationalists from winning the vote for separation. And, sure enough, the leaders tried. Each of the leaders made a good speech. Darling, in particular, was interestingly ecumenical, stressing the success of a multi-party campaign and, above all, the engagement of so many people who arent members of anything at all.
My colleague Severin Carrell has sent me more on the rising SNP membership figures.
The Scottish National party is poised to become one of the largest in the UK after all Scotlands pro-independence parties saw a sudden surge in membership after last weeks referendum.
The SNP announced on Monday that more than 16,000 people had joined the party since it lost Thursdays referendum after a record increase in new applications, which has taken its overall membership to 42,000.
Here are the highlights from the Scotland section earlier.
Apparently, the first minister of Scotland said today while hed lost the referendum, never mind, he might be able to seize power some other way. I just say to Mr Alex Salmond: you lost the argument, you lost the referendum, youve lost office, and now youve lost the plot. The people of Scotland are sovereign and the people of Scotland have said no thanks to separation and you must accept that result.
In the past two years in Scotland, politics has been in our streets, our shops, our workplaces, our hairdressers and our pubs.
And even on Irn Bru crates.
Our vision is not constrained by the borders of nationalism.
And that is what makes our vision all the richer.
Mega drum roll... @theSNP now has 40,000 members. Big welcome to all 14,358 newbies. Join too and make a difference: https://t.co/kSeYpyEDK8
If this keeps going, we'll soon be bigger than the UK-wide @LibDems. 16,186 new @theSNP members and counting. Join: https://t.co/kSeYpyEDK8
Rachel Reeves, the shadow work and pensions secretary, has just finished her speech. Here are the main points.
And for those Liberal Democrats who now say theyre against it too - we will see how serious they are when Parliament returns. Because we will call a vote on the Bedroom Tax. Today I have written to Nick Clegg to urge him to do the right thing and vote with us - not to water it down, but to cancel it altogether.
Universal Credit stuck in first gear.
Work Capability Assessments in meltdown.
As promised, heres a lengthy extract from the speech from Len McCluskey, the Unite general secretary, earlier.
We have seen our political establishment including, lets be honest, our own party have a near-death experience in Scotland.
We have seen an elite in a panic.
Here is some reaction to Ballss speech
Business wasnt looking for any surprises and this speech sets out some of the foundations needed for long-term growth.
Balancing the books is a given for whoever is in Government next, so the business community will be reassured by Mr Balls reaffirming Labours commitment to fiscal discipline.
We welcome the Shadow Chancellors recognition that any government will have to continue to reduce spending after the next election, but the measures announced so far can only be a beginning if Labour is going to put the public finances on a sustainable footing ...
However, they are on the wrong track if they think that raising taxes is the way to secure the economic recovery. Bringing back the 50p rate of income tax would raise an insignificant amount for the taxman while sending a clear signal that Britain doesnt want wealth-creators. Labours previous success came because they recognised the importance of enterprise in creating a prosperous society. To prove that he is still pro-business, Ed Balls must drop his commitment to this self-defeating, envy-driven tax.
Businesses will welcome Ed Balls emphasis on embedding fiscal responsibility in government decision making. The proposal to task the OBR with objectively analysing the costings of party manifestos is a good one. Though arguably a gimmick, the proposal to cut, then freeze ministers pay until the budget deficit is eliminated mirrors the kind of action that the best businesses would take when managing their own finances ...
However, businesses will be dismayed at the reintroduction of the 50p tax rate. Businesses have long said that the 50p top rate of income tax is a disincentive to enterprise, to wealth creation, and to investment here in the UK. There is little evidence it will raise additional tax.
The shadow chancellor may plan to re-peg child benefit to inflation in the long run but its a bitter disappointment to learn that hard-pressed families must take another blow in the short term.
Labours announcement on plans to cap child benefit rises comes after repeated squeezes on this bedrock of the family budget. It represents a major real-terms cut to 13m children. Policy is about making choices and the shadow chancellor has made a choice - to look for savings by cutting help for children.
Len McCluskey, the Unite general secretary, was on the World at One. He described capping child benefit as not the cleverest tactic from Labour and said Unite wanted an immediate rise in the minimum wage.
But he confirmed Unite would make a substantial contribution to Labours general election fighting fund.
Obviously this is our party ... We want our party to go into the election not with one arm tied behind its back because the Tories coffers are spilling over with money from the super rich and the corporate elite. We want it to be an even fight but we havent spoken about the specific numbers.
We cant say we werent warned. Even after the SNP started winning Scottish parliament seats in the east end of Glasgow, some in the Scottish Labour Party clung to the mantra of wooing the middle classes. It took a referendum campaign to remind us that you ignore the hopes of the working people at your political peril.
Ive talked about the importance of our businesses. Ive talked about valuing the people who work in them. The bottom line is this - to be pro-jobs you have to be pro- the people that create them, our businesses. And to be pro-business, you have to be pro the people who work in our businesses.
Broadcasters have a duty, a moral duty of care to their viewers to present a programme without any racial slurs or racial stereotypes. Britains global role will be diminished, if not damaged, if we do not challenge this.
George Eaton at the New Statesman has posted a blog with more detail on Ed Balls latest austerity commitment. Heres an extract.
Balls announced for the first time that in our manifesto there will be no proposals for any new spending paid for by additional borrowing. As Ive previously reported, having pledged to eliminate the current account deficit, rather than the total deficit (in contrast to George Osborne), Balls had left himself with room to borrow for capital spending (such as housing, roads and other infrastructure projects).
But as a spokesman for the shadow chancellor confirmed to me after the speech, he has now ruled out this option. We will not make proposals in the manifesto for extra capital spending paid for by borrowing, I was told. Policy commitments such as the pledge to build 200,000 houses a year by 2020 will be delivered by prioritising housing investment within the existing capital settlement for the next parliament. Having rejected the option of extra borrowing, Labour will now need to meet all its promises through tax rises or spending cuts elsewhere. Austerity really is here to stay.
Heres some Twitter comment on the speech from journalists and commentators.
From ITVs John Ashmore
So far this Ed Balls speech could have come from any conference since 2010, "same old Tories", 'can't trust the Tories with the NHS' etc
Balls' calls for fiscal prudence being met by total silence in the room
Balls sought to assure voters that he can be trusted not to spend wildly. But he didn't provide a new announcement to dramatise restraint
Balls' speech shows he's not a rival for Mili as Brown was for Blair. The BIG stuff is saved for leader's speech. Gordo wdnt hv allowed that
Deeply dispiriting that Balls used speech to slap EU migrants who make net contrib to UK econ & are less likely to claim benefits than Brits
Some boos for Balls when he announces cap on child benefit.
Speech sounding v familiar now. Quick check suggests @edballsmp has been apologising for lax bank regulation since 2011 at least.
This affable, conversational section about what he stands for is much better from @edballsmp
Ed Balls reaches into hat. Roots around fruitlessly. Shakes hat out. Small brown heap thumps softly onto floor. Rabbit has died of boredom
V flat Ed Balls speech though, set tongues wagging.
New line in Balls's speech was that Labour manifesto will not include any new spending proposals paid for by borrowing - more soon. #lab14
Snap verdict: Ed Balls seems to have toughened Labours austerity line. It was hard to spot anything new in the speech - the announcements about freezing child benefit and cutting ministerial pay were briefed to all news outlets overnight - but Balls did include this line in his passage about the fiscal rules Labour would follow.
And we will legislate for these tough fiscal rules in the first year after the election and they will be independently monitored by the Office for Budget Responsibility.
So in our manifesto there will be no proposals for any new spending paid for by additional borrowing.
And heres Ballss peroration.
Conference, this is what our first Labour Budget will do:
A British Investment Bank set up.
And he mentions his stammer, and its impact on his politics.
Because as someone who has grown up with a stammer, I have worked all my political life to break down barriers so that all children can succeed, and to get extra help and support to those children who need it. Because I dont want to live in a society where children are held back by their special need or disability, by their parents income or by the colour of their skin.
Thats why Im Labour.
Balls explains what his priorities are.
People rightly want to know who we are, what drives us on, what makes us tick.
So let me say this.
Walking away from Europe would be a disaster for jobs and investment, Balls says.
Balls says Labour will devolve powers to cities and set up a national infrastructure commission.
Balls confirms that Labour will set up a British investment bank, and give the green investment bank more powers.
And Graham Cole, Chair of AgustaWestland UK is being asked to review for Labour what more can be done to back British exports, he says.
Balls confirms that the national minimum wage will rise to £8 an hour.
But whats the Tory plan for the next Parliament? They want to spend £3 billion on a tax break for a minority of married couples.
People who are separated, widowed or divorced wont get it.
Labour will transform vocational education, Balls says.
And it will have a compulsory jobs guarantee, ending the scourge of long-term unemployment.
Balls says technological change is altering the economy.
The result is a hollowing out of our labour market: medium-wage, skilled jobs on the slide. Low-wage, insecure employment on the rise.
Conference in this new world, we know we cannot succeed the Tory way through a race to the bottom - with British companies simply trying to compete on cost as people see their job security eroded and living standards decline.
And he turns to the mansion tax.
We will levy a tax on the highest value properties - a mansion tax on houses worth over £2 million.
But we will do it in a fair, sensible and proportionate way. Raising the limit each year in line with average rises in house prices. Putting in place protections for those who are asset rich but cash poor. And ensuring those with properties worth tens of millions of pounds make a significantly bigger contribution than those in houses just above the limit.
Labour will not undermine pay review bodies by rejecting their advice out of hand, he says.
And Labour will reintroduce the 50p top rate of tax, he says.
That is why, with the deficit still high and working people already paying more, we opposed David Cameron cutting the 50p top rate of tax. Now cannot be the right time to give the richest 1 per cent of people in the country a £3 billion tax cut.
So as we get the deficit down in the next parliament, the next Labour government will reverse this Tory tax cut for millionaires.
Balls confirms the propose child benefit cap, announced overnight.
All money from the sale of the government stake in Lloyds and RBS will be used not for a frivolous pre-election giveaway, but instead on repaying the national debt, he says.
Police and crime commissioners will be abolished, he confirms.
He confirms that Labour would cut ministerial pay by 5%.
So I can announce today that if we win the election, on day one of the next Labour government, the pay of every government Minister will immediately be cut by five per cent.
Ministerial pay will then be frozen each year until we have achieved our promise to balance the nations books
He repeats his call for the Office for Budget Responsibility to be allowed to audit the plans of Labour and the other parties.
Balls reaffirms his commitment to tough fiscal rules.
So Labour will balance the books in the next parliament.
These will be our tough fiscal rules. We will get the current budget into surplus and the national debt falling as soon as possible in the next parliament.
Balls says Labour will face a hugely difficult task.
But three years of lost growth at the start of this parliament means we will have to deal with a deficit of £75 billion not the balanced budget George Osborne promised by 2015.
And that will make the task of governing hugely difficult.
Balls turns to what Labour will do.
We also need to put right the mistakes this Government has made.
So we wont pay for new free schools in areas where there are excess school places.
Balls says Labour should also have regulated the banks more effectively.
It should have done more to tackle underlying poverty.
He turns to Labours mistakes.
Where we made mistakes like all governments do we should be grown up about it.
We should put our hands up, learn from the past and explain how we will do things differently in the future.
Conference, we should have had tougher rules on immigration from Eastern Europe it was a mistake not to have transitional controls in 2004.
And we must change the rules in the future.
In 2015 Labour will have to save the NHS again. It will do whatever it takes. You can never trust the Tories on the NHS, he says.
Labour has to show it will take the tough decisions we need to get the deficit down, and that we can change our economy and make it work for working people, he says.
So Conference its more important than ever that we the Labour Party are honest with the country about what the last Labour government got right and what we got wrong.
Balls recalls the story about Michael Gove telling Rupert Murdoch that only George Osborne was fit to lead the Conservatives after Cameron. Gove later said he was tipsy. Tipsy - he must have been legless, says Balls.
Balls says nine Tories from the 2010 intake are leaving.
Another scurrying off to Ukip.
And Boris scrambling back to Westminster, preparing to elbow David Cameron out of the way.
But today, perhaps the less said about elbows, the better.
Balls includes Nick Clegg with David Cameron and George Osborne in a list of the same old Tories.
Balls turns to the Tories.
We know what the Tories really mean when they say theyve fixed the economy.
The millionaires who got a massive tax cut.
Balls says Labour has a great responsibility. It is fired up to get Ed Miliband into Downing Street. He has led the party, got more women into the shadow cabinet, got more black and ethnic minority candidates than ever before, stood up for the victims of phone hacking and led the movement.
Ed Miliband has shown courage, strength, principle and vision, Balls says. He is our leader, and the next prime minister.
Balls recalls meeting a constituent whose son is on a zero-hours contract. He has to ring in at 7am every morning. If no work is available then, he has to stay in in case something comes up.
Millions of people are not getting a benefit from the recovery, he says. They are relying on Labour to make things better, he says.
Balls thanks the Labour figures who campaigned in Scotland.
But the decision was made by the people of Scotland. They did not vote for the status quo. They voted for change.
Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, is speaking now.
He says 20 years ago Labour decided to reform its constitution. That led to the new clause 4.
Douglas Alexander may be shadow foreign secretary, but his speech was just as short as all the other shadow cabinet speeches weve had so are. (Most of them barely cover three pages of text.)
Here are the key points.
In the face of such events, the next Labour governments foreign policy will reject two fallacies; the hubris that somehow as the United Kingdom we can re-order the world, or alternatively that we should simply settle for strategic shrinkage and decline.
Because for Britain to now retreat from the world would be as foolish as it would be futile.
As the problems we face become more complex and challenging, peoples confidence in the power of politics is declining. But what I saw in Scotland this summer in town halls and village halls, in school halls and church halls, from the Highlands and the Hebrides, to the Borders and to our great cities, taught me that we can win back that confidence.
Len McCluskey, the Unite general secretary, is speaking now. After a morning of perfectly good, but relatively low-key speeches, hes firing up the audience with a full-on socialist barnstormer.
Chuka Umunna, the shadow business secretary, has just introduced Robin Southwell, head of Airbus, as Labours surprise business speaker.
Heres the speech from Vernon Coaker, the shadow defence secretary. His main announcement was a proposal for a system of statutory defence reviews.
The common theme across our evolving role in Afghanistan, in tackling the threat from [Islamic State] at home and abroad and in meeting the changed security environment in Europe, is, of course, the need for clear strategic direction about the UKs role in the world, how we work multilaterally within NATO, the EU and the UN, and how our Armed Forces are equipped to meet that.
Thats what Britain has been missing. And thats where Labour will lead.
Vernon Coaker offers reviews & processes on defence. No alternative understanding of security threats; little new stress multilaterlaism
Ocado socialism - that seems to be what Stewart Wood, Ed Milibands key policy adviser, was advocating at a fringe meeting at the conference last night. My colleague Rowena Mason was there, and shes sent me this.
Every single worker should get shares in their employer as a potential way of reducing wealth inequality, one of Ed Milibands closest advisers has suggested.
Stewart Wood (Lord Wood of Anfield), an academic and shadow cabinet minister, said companies could be offered bigger incentives to follow the Ocado model of business, where staff all have a stake in the grocery delivery company for which they work.
Jim Murphy, the shadow international development secretary, had an announcement about the abuse of migrant workers in Qatar working on the World Cup infrastructure in his speech. Delegates are debating global affairs, and composite 1, on global human rights, and that urges Labour to expose the companies benefiting from labour exploitation in Qatar.
In his speech Murphy did not address that specific point, but he made another, related announcement.
I met some of those we want to help when I travelled to Qatar home of the 2022 World Cup to see how the kafala system works.
We went unannounced to one of the workers camps in the dead of night. Proud men trapped in sub-human conditions. One Kenyan father I met had been unable to see his son for five years because his employer had seized his passport and left the country leaving him stranded - unable to work or go home and trapped stateless. Others told of abuse and degradation, with as many as eight men shared a filthy room no bigger than a childs bedroom.
The Tory Party are against prioritising universal health coverage abroad. The nation that gave the world the civilising force of the NHS should champion health care around the world. We are inspired by the NHS. So I can announce today that my very first act as Secretary of State on the morning after the election will be to instruct the UKs negotiating team at the United Nations to put universal health coverage at the heart of the worlds ambition for the next 15 years.
Now being debated Composite 1 @GMB_union@UCATTunion - Global Human Rights - focus on Colombia and Qatar #Lab14pic.twitter.com/DKmJ9ofm7K
Glenis Willmott, the leader of Labour MEPs, devoted almost as much of her speech to attacking Ukip as to attacking the Tories. Here are the key points.
In fact we secured our best result on the European stage for 20 years and that was despite Nigel Farage managing to convince many voters he was the one who would stand up for working families.
Yes, the same Nigel Farage who wants to charge you to see your GP.
Carwyn Jones was onstage with Owen Smith, the shadow Welsh secretary. The highlight of Smiths speech was his response to David Camerons English votes for English laws proposals.
So instead of some tawdry trick to buy off backbench critics with the back of a fag packet, back room Balkanisation of Parliament and a purge of Welsh, Scottish and Irish influence.
David Cameron should heed the words of Carwyn Jones & Ed Miliband and call a Constitutional Convention to forge a new Union for Britain.
The scene at the Labour conference in Manchester. Owen Smith and Carwyn Jones are on stage this morning. pic.twitter.com/gww3EVnRSq
On Friday Ed Miliband announced that Labour was backing a full constitutional convention. It is an idea that Carwyn Jones, Waless Labour first minister, has been proposing for two years, as he reminded delegates in his speech.
Here are the main points.
As Gordon Brown has said, the old days of Westminster sovereignty are over. And I want to pay tribute today to Gordons vital contribution in the final days of the Scotland campaign.
We can deliver a fair, better Britain together with a modern structure of government.
Only Labour, with its representation in Wales and Scotland can do this.
Because lets face it, Whitehall has had a dead hand around the throat of enterprise, innovation, and radicalism for long enough.
And thats as true in Sunderland as it is in Swansea, or Stirling. We dont need independence to fix that, we need a devolution settlement that works.
These causes and parties [nationalists and Ukip] are finding support because too many people are simply fed up of what they see as the status quo. Too many people think things - and politics in particular - cannot get any worse.
Those people, to recall Archie Macphersons great speech in the campaign, who said you know, I think I will try a yes.
I dont want to see anymore panicky responses from David Cameron to placate the ranting right in his own party, and the narrow nationalism of Nigel Farage.
The Union has suffered a serious injury and a sticking plaster wont do.
Pre-devolution, two year waiting lists in the NHS were not uncommon. Now the standard wait is ten weeks.
Half of our students got 5 good GCSEs; last year it was more than three quarters.
Weve got a surprise in store, according to the New Statesmans George Eaton.
Worth looking out for special guest business speaker before Chuka Umunna speaks at 11am. #lab14
Digby Jones (Lord Jones), the former CBI director general, was a trade minister in the last Labour government (but not a party member). On the Today programme this morning, he complained that the party was now failing to do enough to win over business leaders.
I would like to see them actually standing up and saying: we get it. Id like to hear Ed Miliband make a speech that says without a thriving business community in the UK, there will be no tax receipt and therefore you will have no public sector and no jobs. We get that, we understand it, we would like business to meet us halfway with better behaviour but we do understand that [business] is important. And therefore we will stimulate investment by lower taxation.
While were back on the subject of the West Lothian question, and the voting rights of Scottish MPs in parliament, this is a good spot. The Economists Jeremy Cliffe points out that last year the government was arguing that it would be a mistake to look for a solution quickly - as David Cameron is now doing.
Ha! Govt statement from Nov warns against rushed answer to English question, says it shld be "thorough & rigorous": https://t.co/wS1zFFmQs0
The McKay Commission [which studied the West Lothian question] has published its report, which included a menu of recommendations. The government is giving serious consideration to this report. Given the significance of the recommendations for both England and the UK as a whole, it is right to take the time required for a thorough and rigorous assessment.
Here are the main points from Ed Balls morning interviews
You cant play political games with our constitution ... The danger is that the Conservatives are now going to completely destabilise the fairness and the accountability and the stability of that union by suddenly trying to play an English nationalist card, which I understand the political reason for doing, because Nigel Farage is taking Tory votes. But actually its playing fast and loose with the union and our constitutional settlement.
I do think this is possibly the most un-prime ministerial thing Ive seen David Cameron do in the last few years.
Here's @Sarah_Montague about to speak to @edballsmp and @bbcnickrobinson at #labourconference#r4todaypic.twitter.com/3EkDfdkplZ
Weve now getting Nick Robinsons post-match analysis. He says the £400m child benefit freeze is a symbol that Labour would take tough choices.
The most interesting thing is what Labour has to say about the NHS. It will be the centre of Ed Milibands speech tomorrow. Robinson says Labour has ruled out extra tax rises on normal workers. But, he suggests, Labour could propose a tax rise on high earners to fund the NHS. (See 7.54am.)
Q: The child benefit cut will target the squeezed middle. Are you hitting the right people?
Balls says there is no doubt Labour stands up for hard-working people. He wants child poverty to go down. And he would like to see child benefit rise towards the end of the next parliament.
Q: The IFS says you would be borrowing £28bn more than the Tories.
Balls says George Osborne is borrowing billions more than he expected.
Q: Why freeze child benefit for another year? It does not save a of money.
Balls says it will save £400m.
Balls says he wants things to be fairer.
Even Boris Johnson today is saying there is no easy solution.
Sarah Montague is interviewing Ed Balls.
Q: Scottish MPs can vote on English-only laws. Are you comfortable with that?
For years Monday at Labour conference has been economy day and the highlight will be the speech from Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor. There are eight other members of the shadow cabinet giving speeches, but, if yesterdays short and rather cursory shadow cabinet speeches are anything to go by, they are unlikely to say anything that will knock Balls off the top of the news schedules.
As usual, some elements from the speech have been briefed in advance. Heres the Guardian preview, and heres how it starts.
Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, will underscore his willingness to take tough fiscal decisions when he reveals he will cap child benefit increases at 1% for the first two years of the next parliament, and force all government ministers to take a symbolic 5% pay cut.
Balls, battling to improve Labours economic credibility in the polls, will defend his decision to back a fiscal stimulus in 2010, but will recommit himself to balancing the books in the next parliament, including by keeping child benefit rises below the rate of inflation and slashing ministers pay by £6,708 a year.
Theres always a bit of rivalry between the journalists and members of parliament on the football pitch. But actually, we all get on really well and none of us realised it had happened because it was two of us coming together and colliding, the game carried on. We then saw that the journalist from the Northern Echo had taken a knock to his eye. Look, it was a complete accident and we both agreed that it could have happened to any of us and Im really sorry that he had that cut, but were good friends and no hard feelings.
Shadow Chancellor @edballsmp speaking to @BBCBreakfast about Labour's Plan for Britain's Future #Lab14pic.twitter.com/mvroCSCATi
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