The coalition's obsession

While members of both parties are expressing their own disillusionment with the coalition, the PM and his deputy have nothing fresh to offer.

They remain wedded to each other and to the bankers' austerity agenda that has delivered recession to Britain and the rest of Europe.

Cameron plays the same cracked gramophone record, repeating constantly that the government has a responsibility to deal with the "economic mess" left by the last Labour government.

Labour's decision to offer state support to the banks after denying every other industry was indeed costly, but the Tories supported it. Their only disagreement with Gordon Brown over the City is that they wanted even less financial regulation.

Clegg denies an "ideological obsession" with trimming the public sector, asserting that not leaving the national debt to future generations is a "clear moral responsibility."

How anyone who has betrayed so many manifesto promises as Clegg has can talk about moral responsibility is a dilemma that could be phrased as an exam question to university students who believed his pre-election guff about opposing higher tuition fees.

As if the two men were not in enough trouble, their double act was heralded by disgraced former minister David Laws who suggested that the pair would show "unity and shared purpose."

The wealthy man who claimed nearly £1,000 a month in expenses to which he wasn't entitled stresses coalition commitment to its policies on the economy, "education reform, welfare reform" - making workers, pensioners, students and claimants stump up to cover debts run up by the banks.

Westminster whisperers suggest constantly that Laws could be on the brink of returning to Cabinet, having served his time on the back benches for having his fingers in the till.

Perhaps Ed Miliband could respond by promoting Hazel Blears to shadow Laws, thus exemplifying the parliamentary elite's contempt for normal standards of decency and probity.

At least this might get him a headline, albeit of a negative flavour, in contrast to his lacklustre meet-the-people performance in Harlow.

Miliband had the opportunity to nail the coalition as the servants of the City and the well-heeled by sounding a battle cry to the seven in 10 voters who saw nothing to merit visiting a polling booth last Thursday.

Having acknowledged that much of the electorate neither trusts politicians nor believes that they have relevance to problems faced by normal people, he missed a political open goal.

When 71 per cent of voters back renationalisation of water and a similar percentage wants the railways back in public ownership, why does Miliband persist with abstractions about relying on regulation of private monopolies to deliver "fairness?"

Why does he equate guaranteeing over-75 pensioners the best possible electricity tariff with standing up to the energy companies when he knows that they are ripping us all off and should be back in the public sector?

And why did he fail once more to pledge a massive council housebuilding programme to tackle the spectre of homelessness haunting Britain?

Labour did well in the council elections because it wasn't in government, but, unless it puts forward a real alternative to bankers' rule, it will fail to enthuse the numbers necessary to replace the coalition.