Liam Byrne told the LSE in January 2012:

“Labour is the party of hard workers not free-riders. The clue is in the name. We are the Labour party. The party that said that idleness is an evil. The party of workers, not shirkers”

The Telegraph is reporting that Lord Marland is set to resign as a business minister, after Paul Waugh suggested earlier that another Tory was to quit the government imminently. Another Tory peer quitting public life for the private sector. 

Lord Strathclyde resigned just as the PM was about to deliver his mid-term review, Lord Marland goes just as the government wins the benefits vote. You can’t beat timing like that…

The government wins the vote on the benefits uprating amendment by 328 to 262, a majority of 66.

A victory for hard-working families up and down the country, IDS, and general common sense.

Even Baldemort is probably secretly pleased…

UPDATE: And the government wins the vote on the second reading of the uprating bill with a majority of 56.

Labour’s shadow work and pensions spokesman Liam Byrne made a big fanfare today raging against the Tories “unacceptable” language.  Rewind back to his 2011 conference speech and Baldamort was singing from a very different hymn sheet:

RESPONSIBILTY TO WORK
But there is one responsibility more that we will not ignore. A renewed responsibility on everyone to take a job if they can. Let’s face the tough truth – that many people on the doorstep at the last election, felt that too often we were for shirkers not workers. We’ve got to deal with that if we want to get re-elected. 

Liam was right then, but was this use of “shirkers” a one off?

No. He told the LSE in January 2012:

“Labour is the party of hard workers not free-riders. The clue is in the name. We are the Labour party. The party that said that idleness is an evil. The party of workers, not shirkers”

Unacceptable language eh? 

Just one day after the Times was briefed that David Miliband is considering a return to the front this time next year, he has shown the Labour’s current mediocre front-bench how attacking the government is done, and shown the rank and file membership just what they are missing. He managed to employ a level of maturity in attacking Gordon Brown, and by proxy Ed Balls, that evades “Team GB”:

“But this rancid Bill is not about fairness or affordability. It reeks of politics, the politics of dividing lines that the current Government spent so much time denouncing when they were in Opposition in the dog days of the Brown Administration. It says a lot that within two years it has fallen into the same trap. We all know the style. Invent your own enemy. Spin your campaign to a newspaper editor short on facts – or high on prejudice. “Frame” the debate. But the enemy within is unemployment not the unemployed. And I don’t want to live in a society where we pretend that we can enjoy the good life while our neighbours lose their life chances. It is bad enough to have no economic growth or 420 000 young long term unemployed or rising levels of child poverty or declining levels of social mobility. It is hard to stomach a Government that takes no responsibility for their mistakes.”

David cleverly attacks the government, without attacking the concept of reducing the benefit bill. Something that the other the two Eds continually fail to do. The Prince Across the Water spent the rest of the afternoon pressing the flesh with Labour MPs in the atrium of Portcullis House…

UPDATE:

. @IsabelHardman If he had bothered to shake their hands before he'd be leader of the Labour Party by now. But he was too grand to bother—
Tim Shipman (Mail) (@ShippersUnbound) January 08, 2013

Sarah Teather is leading the devastating charge for the LibDem rebels in this afternoon’s welfare debate. So far five LibDems are understood to be rebelling or abstaining in this evening’s vote:

Just met with #Whips and let them know I will not be voting for the Benefit Cap tonight. Hope to speak in debate, too.—
John Leech (@johnleechmcr) January 08, 2013

I will not vote for Benefits Uprating Bill tonight – I'm proud we put up benefits 5.2% last year, in line w inflation. 1% is too little #fb—
Julian Huppert (@julianhuppert) January 08, 2013

To be clear,I'll abstain tonight,but vote against at 3rd reading if I can't support an amendment at committee stage—
Adrian Sanders (@adriansandersmp) January 08, 2013

Andrew George is also reportedly likely to abstain. Whips will be quaking…

UPDATE: David Ward has now indicated he will rebel.

Ed Balls isn’t even speaking this afternoon and he is still the laughing stock of parliament.

Baldemort was loving it…

IDS hits the nail on the head as Alec Shelbrooke asks him when Labour started bribing the electorate:

 ”It comes in their DNA.”

Boris is getting a deserved kicking this afternoon over Ray Lewis’ £20,000 one day-a-week job. In addition to his unpaid position as Ambassador for Mentoring, Ray Lewis is being paid as the London Mayor’s Senior Advisor for Mentoring. Fishy.

Obviously the tin-foil Continuity-Ken brigade are frothing this afternoon, demanding that the Standard splash the story. Discussing the issue with their hack Pippa Crerar, LabourList’s Mark Ferguson, with a new found regard for taxpayer money, scored a spectacular own goal:

@Markfergusonuk Oh don't be such a cynic. Of course we're covering it. In fact I think you'll find we were first to tweet it!—
Pippa Crerar (@PippaCrerar) January 08, 2013

@Markfergusonuk Past experience? It was our investigation which forced him to quit in 2008 by revealing he lied about being a magistrate.—
Pippa Crerar (@PippaCrerar) January 08, 2013

Heard the one about the paper covering up a story that they broke…

Guido was sad to miss two-faced Chuka Umunna dining in a pub popular with the Guy Newsroom team last night. Judging by his choice of meal, the Shadow Business Secretary was putting on his man of the people act, though a co-conspiratorial vintner whispers that the mask slipped and Chuka awkwardly came a cropper with his cutlery:

“He had a burger and a pint of s**t lager. Dropped his knife and waited for someone to pick it up for him. Nobody did of course.”

He does think he’s a cut above the rest, after all…