Now Murphy joins the battle

First it was Lord Glason,now shadow defence secretary Jim Murphy has questioned the party's relentless attack on spending cuts without its own solution.

This morning's Guardian quotes Murphy as saying that the party must reject 'shallow and temporary' populism.

Once again this could well be an attack not on the leader but on his shadow Chancellor.

Murphy is talking specifically about defence cuts telling the paper that he agrees with £5bn of the government's planned cuts in defence.

However the inference is there for all to see.

As Glen Ogazla has just written at Boulton and Co

Although he does not attack Ed Miliband's leadership (he was, you may remember, David Miliband's campaign manager during the Labour leadership election), Jim Murphy highlights the great problem for Ed Miliband so far: He is not getting through and not being seen as a Prime Minister in waiting.

Whilst
Peter Hoskin at Coffee hails the fact that Murphy goes beyond this simple rhetoric, becoming the first shadow minister to give some of those ‘details’ that Balls mentioned.

Whatever the behind the scenes manoeuvrings,it appears that the party may be finally getting its act into gear over its opposition to the coalition's deficit reduction strategy.

Credible fiscal alternatives rather than blazon rhetoric will win the voters to the cause

Quentin in trouble

James Kirkup looks forward to defence questions in the Commons this afternoon.

Following the weekend's resignation of Major Morley he has taken exceptions to the comments of a certain Quentin Letts

Mr Davies was wheeled at the weekend to respond to Thomas Harding's scoop about the resignation of an SAS squadron commander over the death of three of his men in what he considered an inadequately-protected vehicle.
The essence of the minister's response: commanders are killing their troops by choosing the wrong vehicle for operations.
No, really, that's what he said. Here's the quote: "Obviously there may be occasions when in retrospect a commander chose the wrong piece of equipment, the wrong vehicle, for the particular threat that the patrol or whatever it was encountered and we had some casualties as a result."

And as James points out

By wonderful coincidence, the first question that will be put to John Hutton is: "To ask what recent steps he has taken to maintain and enhance morale in the armed forces."

Des Browne mauled on Today

If you want to hear an example of a politician being publically mauled then listen to defence secretary Des Browne being interviewed by John Humphreys on Today this morning.
It started badly with Browne accusing Humphreys of not having read the ruling and saying his introduction was full of inaccuracies.

Humphreys then attempted to go thru his introduction point by point with Browne digging his heals in over every point.

Humphreys insisting on reciting what the judge said and accused Browne of splitting hairs.

The breaking point came as the Today presenter accused the Defence secretary of going to court to stop the legal process investigating the failings of equipment in Iraq.Browne would not except that issue and Humphreys kept asking why he is appealing against the judgement.

By the end of the interview Browne was flaying seemingly losing the plot and repeating the same line over and over again.Then to finish him off,Humphreys brought up the issue of Bae.

Marvellous listening!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cameron turns to defence but is he held back by spending commitments

Policy announcements thick and fast from the Tories.Hot on the heals of NHS spending and prisons,today it is the turn of defence.

On the back of Prince Harry's triumphant return from Helmund province,David Cameron uses a speach at the in front of Falklands hero,Simon Weston to talk of restoring the military conovent

The Telegraph reports that

The Conservative leader has announced a new party commission to look at ways to improve the treatment of service personnel and their families.

And they have got a heavyweight to chair it as Red Box reports

The Cameron tent just got bigger, with the appointment by David Cameron of author Frederick Forsyth to chair a Tory Commission on the military covernant

.

Ben Brogan asks whether defence be Cameron's No1 priority?

I was particularly struck by Mr Cameron's political courage in raising the issue, despite being unable to tell us whether the Conservatives would spend more or less on defence in future. It's a risky area for him, and he is under pressure from Liam Fox to say more.

A risky area not in part because of the party being frightened of committing to spending increases and Nick Robinson notes

Curiously he omitted a line from his prepared speech about Labour cutting defence spending. It's yet another sign that he is struggling to control the pressure coming from within his party to spend more and tax less.