Stressful summer ahead for leaders

Parliament is back in session and MPs are settling in for a marathon term by their standards.

They’ll be sitting for a whole seven weeks followed by six weeks off to recover.

It’ll be a vital summer session for all three party leaders.

Prime Minister’s Questions this Wednesday will be David Cameron’s first in six weeks and a chance to show his own backbenchers what he’s made of.

Cynics suggested the Government programmed so many breaks throughout spring so Conservative critics of the PM couldn’t scheme and plot in the bars and tearooms of Westminster. If that was their plan then, like so much of the Downing Street operation, it’s gone horribly awry. Instead, robbed of their weekly opportunity to see their man duff up the other man and these days PMQs tends to be fairly evenly matched the backbenchers forgot whether their leader was any good. Worse, all they heard from Number 10 was support for gay marriage a vote on the issue showed less than half the party agreed and obstruction on a European referendum, which has support from much more than half the party.

The irony is things have been going well for the Government but Number 10 has been too busy quelling internal unrest to trumpet the good news.

Immigration has been pinpointed as the main issue driving Ukip success and this Government is getting it down. It seems likely that’s because more people are fleeing these shores and we are barring bright students from coming in but, nevertheless, the bald figures show the Tories on track to keep their promise and reduce immigration to the tens of thousands.

There has been a string of economic announcements on borrowing, inflation and unemployment showing things are looking up. There’s been nothing to suggest the economy is going to turn round to such an extent that the Government can breathe easy ahead of the general election but, while no recovery at all meant they were doomed in 2015, a slow recovery puts them back in the running. And recovery is a headache for Labour. Of course they have to say they want the economy thriving, but their best chance of getting back in is that George Osborne makes such a mess of the economy that voters are willing to let Ed Balls run it instead assuming Ed Balls is still shadow chancellor going into the next election.

Ed Miliband will contest 2015 as leader, but he needs to sharpen up his team this summer as the party needs some eye-catching policies with the election less than two years away.

A shadow cabinet reshuffle is likely Miliband will have to plan it with care and conduct it ruthlessly to ensure it shores up his position rather than creating backbench enemies.

One man not short of enemies is Nick Clegg. He, too, is sure to contest the next election. Unfortunately for him he’s equally sure to be replaced shortly after that election because the Lib Dems will undoubtedly lose seats.

Clegg is increasingly painted as a political dead man walking. It’s a shame because when he stood in for David Cameron at Prime Minister’s Questions last month he showed some of that swagger and confidence that briefly had people talking about him as a potential PM in his own right after the 2010 leaders’ debates.

When he’s at the Despatch Box he gets as many pelters from the Tories behind him as the Labour benches before him.

And there’s no let-up when he faces the media, of course. At a recent press conference he took a question from a journalist known to write less than complimentary articles about the Lib Dem leader.

“See I even take questions from my critics!” beamed Clegg.

“If you didn’t, there wouldn’t be many questions,” came the terse reply.