These quality candidates have grown into politics since being elected in 2010

ED MILIBAND knew he was going to have a bad week before it even began, for it was always going to end in Milton Keynes.

Labour convened this weekend in the so-called City of the Future to draw up a manifesto they hope will propel them to the rather more pleasant surroundings of Downing Street.

Of course, at the time it was developed, everyone thought Milton Keynes was going to work out well.

Instead it’s ended up a source of disappointment at best and ridicule at worst.

That fatemay yet befall Labour’s tilt at the general election.

It certainly feels like the momentum is with the Tories.

Last week’s reshuffle was a success.

David Cameron got as near as dammit to having a third of his ministers female, as he pledged in 2010.

And they are by no means token women.

These are quality candidates who’ve had time to grow into politics since being elected in 2010.

Nicky Morgan looked surprised to be named Education Secretary but then she permanently looks as if she’s just seen Michael Gove emerging from a toilet.

This happened last week when the new Chief Whip in charge of making sure his MPs vote the right way missed the first vote of his tenure by spending toomuch time in the toilet. Wags noted it had been a difficult movement for him, from Education to theWhips Office.

Liz Truss was given the Environment brief, presumably because she saw off the so-called Turnip Taliban of Norfolk to get selected in the first place.

And Penny Mordaunt (below) got a seasonal job at the Department of Communities and Local Government, where she’s in charge of planning and coastal communities.

Presumably, anyone wanted to erect a sandcastle must first seek her permission.

The Lib Dems are letting the side down, they’ve only seven woman MPs to choose from, but that only works further in the PM’s favour as he can kick them occasionally for doing so.

He did exactly that at the last Prime Minister’s Questions of the summer.

Nick Clegg looked sad beside him. The PM was in exuberant form at the despatch box because he knew he had a rabbit in the hat for his exchanges with Ed Miliband.

And not just any rabbit, this was akin to the killer bunny that savages King Arthur and his knights in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Cameron quoted a radio interview by Harriet Harman from the previous day.

While everyone else had been watching his reshuffle some bright spark at Conservative Party headquarters was scanning the airwaves.

Harman said:“I think people on middle incomes should contribute more through their taxes.”

It’s going some to interpret that as an assault on the squeezed middle. It’s remarkably uncontroversial to suggest people who earn more should pay more.

Yet it’s a sign of how hard the going is for Ed Miliband at the moment that this co m m e n t completely derailed him.

The problem was he was completely blindsided.

Not only did he lack the holy hand grenade of King Arthur to lob back, he wasn’t even able to run away.

Instead, he was reduced to dubbing the Prime Minister desperate, in the process looking desperate himself.

Later in the week, in an attempt to get back on track, Ed cooked up a policy on rail re-nationalisation.

Like freezing energy prices, bringing the railways back into public ownership is something his candidates can easily sell on the doorsteps. But that’s not what he’s proposing. Instead he’s gone for a confusing mix that involves allowing public companies to bid for franchises as and when they come up renewal.

How many potential voters will be listening at the end of that?

Miliband has hit the buffers.