Rachel Reeves vowing to dig, baby, dig forced her cabinet comrade Green Ed Miliband to insist he won’t quit over Heathrow expansion plans. This in turn triggered a veteran fixer to recall how Miliband owed his, admittedly ill-fated, Labour leadership to once backing a third runway. As secretary of state for energy and climate change in Gordon Brown’s government, Miliband initially argued against concreting over another stretch of west London. Irn-Broon’s old spinner Charlie Whelan, by then wheeling and dealing for the Unite union, was dispatched by the PM to persuade Mili to become a builder not a blocker. Miliband U-turned and Unite subsequently threw its weight behind him to narrowly beat elder brother David to the Labour leadership. Then Green Ed swiftly jettisoned expansion. The Energy Security and Net Zero Secretary’s in-out-in Heathrow hokey-cokey continues a merry dance.
Shrinking faster than Tory majorities at the election, downsized MP Alec Shelbrooke shedding five and a half stone with weight-loss jabs hasn’t earned a free pass from Lindsay Hoyle. The Commons Speaker, fresh from ordering a brew during a cameo appearance on Emmerdale, scolded the notorious heckler after another noisy outburst. Svelte Shelbrooke, boomed Hoyle, still had a big voice.
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