Policy chaos. MPs in a panic. A rattled prime minister, with fear in his eyes.

It’s been a dangerous couple of days for the Labour party.

Conference season is a game of two halves. Attack. Counterattack. You roll out your programme. They hit it. You assess where the blows have fallen hardest. Recalibrate. Then you roll out your programme again.

Not this year. By accident, and by design, the Tories have played to different rules.

This should have been the week that Cameron and co. blew some sizeable holes in “Red Ed” and the “new generation”. Instead, they spent the best part of their conference blowing holes in each other.

Their semi-disintegration on child benefit was selfishly dispiriting. I couldn’t weep for the single mothers about to lose their benefits. Or the families facing hardship. All I could think was: “did we really lose an election to this shower”? (more…)