Demi-Pardise

Ed Miliband may not be Shakespeare's John of Gaunt. But then, nor was the real one. And Miliband is certainly the only Party Leader making the case for the Union as a first principle, or talking about a distinctively English identity. There are those who say that you cannot do both. Manifestly, you can. Or you can do neither, like David Cameron and Nick Clegg.

The Union and England now join the list of all the things for which only Labour is arguing: a universal postal service rather than the monstrosity that privatisation would produce, the Queen's Highways rather than toll roads owned by the sovereign wealth funds of faraway petrostates on the permanent brink of Islamist coups, the National Health Service rather than its piecemeal flogging off to Andrew Lansley's American business partners, keeping Sunday special rather than compelling the little people to work seven-day weeks, a free vote on the redefinition of marriage, a referendum on continued membership of the EU, the historic regimental system rather than something like the United States Marine Corps (except in no sense an elite force) as part of the single EU defence "capability" under overall American command, and the State action necessary in order to maintain the work of charities, the work of churches, and a large and thriving middle class.