Heard the one about the mysterious heir to a family fortune who is secretly a superhero by night? If Ella Phillips, 29, from Camden is anything to go by, the Miliband tactic of trying to win over one voter at a time on the ground seems to be paying off. Apparently Ed is “a bit like an action hero”:

“There was a bike in front of me which suddenly stopped so I had to make an emergency brake. The back wheel flipped over, and the next thing I knew my face was hurtling towards the ground. There must have been a fault with the brakes or the chain. Then, there was Ed Miliband’s face looking very concerned at me. I started to wonder how badly I’d banged my head. My first thought was that I was seeing things because I was still in quite a daze.”

That was not as scary as that sounds: “What added to all the confusion was that he was actually attractive and not geeky at all. Even the way he appeared was suave. He was dressed casually but he had style.” Rumours the Labour leader was wearing a mask and cape, are greatly exaggerated. “He mysteriously appeared out of nowhere” – a feeling well known to David, 47, from New York.

Via LabourList.

Ed and Twitter is always a great source of amusement. Here is his awkward tribute to Sir Alex Ferguson:

Proud man. Great manager. Staunch Labour Party supporter. Sir Alex Ferguson will never be forgotten.—
Ed Miliband (@Ed_Miliband) May 08, 2013

Literally hundreds more had the same sentiment. “A generation will remember him fondly from Blackbusters.”

The tension from Labour’s underwhelming performance at the locals last week is boiling over. Last night Peter Hain comically denied he was firing a broadside against Ed Balls for not pulling his weight:

Advance Mischief-making to suggest my coming piece in @ProgressOnline Gdn an attack – coded or otherwise – on anybody in Labour. It's not.—
Peter Hain (@PeterHain) May 07, 2013

It was described by the Guardian as a ‘coded attack’, but now the full piece in Progress is out, the word coded looks like a massive understatement:

“Labour’s Treasury team need to get out on the stump now and work even harder. It shouldn’t just be left to Ed and Harriet to carry the heavy load, whether on the World at One, the Today programme or anywhere else.”

If that is a ‘coded attack’, then bring on the open fireworks. Ever the master of subtly, Hain is so loyal to Miliband, Guido doubts he rumbled Macavity Balls without permission. Though worth remembering the lecture is coming from someone who quit the Shadow Cabinet to make some money…

The real David’s majority has been almost halved…

Via Sky.

24 hours after Guido reported that Ken had blamed America for the Boston bombings on Iranian state television, and still he has escaped reprimand. Tory MP Brooks Newmark has now written to Ed demanding he be sacked from Labour’s NEC:

“I find it wholly reprehensible for Mr Livingstone to link the Boston bombings to Western intervention in the Middle East. In doing so, he suggests that the actions of the two Boston bombers were justified and excusable. I am sure that both you and the Labour Party agree that terrorism, which in this case killed three innocent people and injured many others, is never justified and never excusable.

He also intimates that America itself was responsible for the bombings. I am sure that you will also agree with me that the only two people responsible for the bombings were the terrorists themselves.

As a member of Labour’s NEC, Mr Livingstone has been placed in a position of responsibility and influence within your Party. As leader of the Labour Party, I call on you to condemn these disgusting remarks and remove Mr. Livingstone from your NEC. I know you will want to do so as soon as possible to make clear that neither you nor the Labour Party condones such beliefs.”

Your move, Ed…

“No you don’t understand Martha”

Guido goes out for lunch and Ed Miliband drives into a brick wall. Typical…

In yesterday’s Sun column Guido revealed an awkward moment Ed Miliband would be proud of for his American campaigning guru Arnie Graf. Hoping some of his Obama community organising magic would rub off this side of the Atlantic, Labour sent Graf door knocking with Tessa Jowell. When she later invited him along to her surgery, he was not so keen, awkwardly asking whether she might like to go with someone closer to her. Maybe a friend or family member for a hospital visit, Graf optimistically suggested. America and Britain, still divided by a common language.

Not only did Ed, David, Boris and Rachel go to the same primary school, it seems the Milibands and the Johnsons all shared the same hairdresser. These north London elite types are all the same…

They were getting on so well, but the burgeoning friendship between Ed and George is over. Miliband called time on things this morning:

“I think George Galloway’s views are awful. He might want me to be prime minister, but I don’t want him to be an MP. George Galloway isn’t coming back to the Labour party. We want to defeat him at the next election in his Bradford West seat.”

To which Galloway hit back:

“Miliband’s claim that he repeatedly pursued me for a one hour meeting about “boundary changes” is, quite simply, a lie. I realise now that I showed poor judgement in finally agreeing to meet Miliband. An unprincipled coward with the backbone of an amoeba.”

Nothing like a good public spat…

Ed Miliband has been out and about today campaigning for the local elections:

Not content with the small crowd he pulled for his stump speech, he decided to take his message door to door. Car door to door that is. The Merc driver doesn’t look like he’s feeling the pinch too much:

Talking of crowds, the number of people turning up at UKIP events cannot go unnoticed. Farage is consistently pulling these numbers, with overflow rooms having to be set up on his Partridge-sounding “Common Sense Tour”:

Who looks like they have got the momentum in this election?

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