Ed Miliband just revealed that he’d met with David Davis, saying that they agreed on an increasing number of subjects – an In/Out referendum is creeping up that list. Labour backing the plebiscite would be opportunistic, calculated and brilliant. It would drive the Tories round the bend and no effort has been made to shut down the speculation this weekend. Cameron has reaffirmed his position against the idea, putting the ball firmly in Miliband’s court. Ed also coughed that they both had some harsh words for the Prime Minister: “but, that is perhaps, another story”…

UPDATE: Liar Politicians got the video:

As Guido recommended last year, Labour could play a blinder if they outflank the Tories on the issue of an EU referendum. It appears there could be some movement:

It might be right to have a wider referendum on uk membership of eu, but not now – ed balls.—
Patrick Wintour (@patrickwintour) May 14, 2012

If Dave does end up on the wrong side of history here, he only has himself to blame…

Miliband probably had his best Commons outing yet this afternoon. When Guido asked his team what what they fed him today the reply was “Tories on toast.” There was a touch of a young William Hague in the balance of well-timed comedy and attack…

Ed (or his speechwriters) have clearly been reading the Daily Star Sunday – his Boris gag was lifted straight from it:

NOTICEABLY, the Prime Minister did not pop in to the party to congratulate the only Tory success of the elections. Just as well, since Boris, when he finally arrived, thanked supporters who, he joked, beat “the rain, the BBC, that Budget and the endorsement of David Cameron”.

If you missed that, and the rest of Guido’s Sunday column, then you can read it online here.

Miliband told the people of Harlow yesterday:

“We should be totally intolerant of people who are skiving off. I want a health service where if people aren’t doing their jobs properly, they aren’t doing their jobs any more. We should find a way to crack down on this and stop it happening. If people aren’t really sick then something should be done about it.”

Quite. A bit rich though from the man who pulled a sickie to avoid a “24 hours to save the NHS rally” and went to a football match with a millionaire donor instead…

After Guido suggested here last week that it was rather odd that a member of the Labour Party Executive board and deputy Chief of Staff to the leader had managed to breeze into the candidacy for a nominally safe Labour seat, Lucy Powell has resigned from both her roles. Funny that she didn’t think it was appropriate to do so before her stitched up selection…

Today’s Mirror carries an extraordinary double page spread bigging up Miliband as a “political giant”. Hardly a surprise for Labour’s paper, except it’s David that receives “a rapturous reception and appears to be a man reborn.” The profile of concludes that the shunned brother “still hungers for power”:

“He slapped down the idea that life as a backbencher has been a “liberation”, saying: “No. Being in government is not a prison. It allows you to put into practice what you believe in.” Whatever colleagues at Westminster may think, David Miliband isn’t ready for the political scrapheap.”

Given that the interview took place on the stump, the best line by far was James Lyons assertion that “it’s like watching a champion racehorse reduced to giving seaside rides.” Not even the Mirror would try using the word champion and Ed in the same sentence…

Though it looked like Dave might be developing shades of Jonah Brown about him when he landed in Indonesia to be greeted by an earthquake, Ed fans should not be laughing yet. True to his ideological father, Miliband seems to have had the reverse Midas touch with Aquascutum. Choosing the outfitters for his rushed wedding last year, the firm have now gone bust. Keep an eye on TM Lewin…

He was in Gordon’s bunker when the film came out and presumably too busy with his Rubiks cube in his spare time.

Ed Miliband has finally snuck his list of donor’s dinners out. A Friday afternoon data dump is always a sure sign that you don’t want too much digging  to be done. The meetings are overwhelmingly with his union paymasters but there are at least two “predators” welcomed in to break bread in his own home. With just one glance there are glaring gaps in the list, for example it shows a meeting with on 9 February with £100,000 donor Assem Allam, but not the meeting he had with him on the 10 March. The one we know about because he was photographed arriving at it in a Royles Royce instead of attending an NHS rally. How many other donors did not make the cut?

There is still no mention of Ed’s secret off the record meeting with the shady spinmeister Roland Rudd. Rudd organised meetings between Ed and business types and is a Labour donor through his firm Finsbury. Why has this not been reported here, and why when Ed promised live on TV to release the list of attendees, has this still not happened?

Even when David Miliband is looking like he is praising his kid brother, he still can’t resist twisting the knife in every so often. This month it is the turn of GQ to interview the part-time MP:

“The British people are very good at – how I can put this delicately? – the British admire nothing so much as someone who’s lost, that is a very endearing British quality. Everyone has disappointments in their life and so it creates an immediate point of empathy.”

Ed may be having a good week, but that is more the fault of the Tories. Strange of David to play up his connection to the people as if someone else is lacking it…