Shadow cabinet muscle
As Labour settles into the business of opposition, we’re seeing a little pushing and shoving in the shadow cabinet. But what’s interesting is that the tensions aren’t either Blair-Brown, or even left-right in nature.

What we’re seeing instead are the tensions of ambition and the limitations of opposition. The shadow cabinet are trying to flex their muscles, and that means they sometimes rub up against each other.

Fast-rising Sadiq Khan is one muscle-flexer who could be forgiven for feeling a little deflated. The shadow justice secretary’s remarks on the numbers going to prison were – how can we put this? – ‘clarified’ in a speech by shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper. It was one of those clarifications that sting like an elbow to the ribs.

It wasn’t so much what Khan said, but the way it was briefed. A stress on rehabilitation is all well and good, but telling hacks that New Labour was wrong to ‘play tough’ on crime was perhaps something that should be left to the shadow home secretary herself. Some were quick to identify the clash as a Miliband-Balls war by proxy, but that’s not the case. It’s a much more traditional case of territory marking.

More successfully tensing his flexors and bulging his biceps is John Healey, the runner-up in the shadow cabinet race, who penned a strident blast against AV on the day his leader spoke up for electoral reform. Healey’s stock has been rising recently, with shadow cabinet election success and his popularisation of the ‘squeezed middle’. His willingness to reach beyond his portfolio on a big issue is a sign of increasing confidence. His ability to do so with impunity points to increasing power. Quietly effective, Healey is rapidly becoming one of the power-players in the new opposition.

Tin hat for Byrne?
As the welfare reform bill makes its way through the Commons, shadow minister Liam Byrne is recovering from a shelling from his own side. When Byrne spoke to the PLP rank and file, most backbenchers didn’t understand why they weren’t voting against the welfare reform bill, and it’s rumoured that some whips felt the same way. The bombardment he received was the biggest seen since opposition.

One insider sighs sympathetically for Brummie Byrne: ‘One MP said we didn’t need to look like an alternative government four years ahead of a general election. It’s hard to argue with that attitude’. Byrne is promising a more aggressive approach at third reading if the government doesn’t make major concessions. They won’t, because George Osborne will do a jig if he can paint Labour as demanding higher welfare spending come the next election.

Still, Byrne should get used to friendly fire. He’s got the big policy review job, which means Mr Ed will soon need to hear which of the shadow minister-led policy teams deserve medals and which need to go back for some basic training.

Those discussions will not be easy ones, and a few disgruntled shadow ministers might – heaven forbid – relieve their frustrations by lobbing grenades at the Hodge Hill Harrier.

AV wobbles
Who’s going to come out on top in the AV campaign? Since the Labour party is split down the middle on the issue, most Labour MPs are trying to avoid being dragged too closely into someone else’s fight.
Mind you, one privately sceptic shadow minister says Ed Miliband has positioned himself cleverly to win whichever way it goes.

Miliband’s been loudly supportive of AV personally, so can’t be accused of backing away from the fight. What’s more, having picked a fight with Nick Clegg as the Yes campaign launched, Miliband can now blame the deputy PM if the referendum sinks, casting himself as the only leader with a real reform agenda.

On the other hand, if AV succeeds, Miliband can claim credit and seek to divide the prime minister from his restive Tory backbenchers, while making life uncomfortable for the Liberal Democrats by pushing for further reforms, like a fully elected House of Lords.

It’s win-win for Miliband. Only trouble is, according to the shadow sceptic ‘no one but MPs cares about AV – win or lose’.

Oh, Diane…
When Diane Abbott was promoted to the shadow public health job, some in Westminster were already taking bets on how long she’d last at the dispatch box. A junior shadow ministerial role is not the most glamorous of posts in British politics, and Abbott has never struck those who know her as someone who enjoys making the eat-yer-veg speeches generally required from public health ministers.
So perhaps it’s no surprise she’s chafing at the leash a little.

First sign was her appearance on Come Dine with Me, proffering a powerful rum punch to sozzle her guests and pocketing a handy three grand for her efforts.

Then we witnessed a return to the This Week sofa, where she joined old sparring partner Andrew Neil, and just about remembered she was a shadow minister, and not able to reject party policy at whim.

But the most serious challenge for Abbott’s struggle with the boundaries of collective responsibility will be Libya. At first, she seemed sceptical of the value of action in the Maghreb. ‘I’ve seen this movie, and I know how it ends’ she tweeted, before making a quick about-turn and agreeing that the decision to attack Colonel Gaddafi’s forces was ‘Better than Iraq’ and that ‘We couldn’t just stand by and do nothing’ before spinning around again and deciding that ‘It does all sound eerily similar to what I heard at the start of the Iraq war.’

Sometimes it’s hard to walk the line, Diane. Stick with it.