MILIBAND'S SHADOW TEAM

ED Miliband showed a deft touch in the senior appointments to Labour's Shadow Cabinet yesterday. After his own recent experience in competing with his brother for the party's leadership he was probably anxious not to put Ed Balls and his wife Yvette Cooper in contention for the post of Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer despite their qualifications for it, and instead assigned it to Alan Johnson. In doing this he also showed a strength he will need as leader by acting according to his own instincts rather than by the expectations of others. It has to be borne in mind that Shadow Cabinet posts, particularly at the start of a new Parliament, are seldom definitive statements for the future, and that when Mr Miliband comes to form a government his options will not be confined to the pool of those elected by their peers which he drew on yesterday.

Against that background, the choice of Ed Balls to shadow Home Office matters and Yvette Cooper in a similar role in relation to the Foreign Office make sense although her additional responsibility for the Women and Equality assignment may prove incompatible. Beyond those three key posts Mr Miliband has conducted a competent mix-and-match exercise with names familiar and unfamiliar. Tessa Jowell rightly returns to Olympic Games issues and he has used the wild cards available to him to retain Peter Hain on Welsh subjects and Shaun Woodward in the still difficult Northern Ireland job.