Morning Report – April 19th

John Reid was back yesterday, and he took centre stage with the PM at a No to AV event. At the same time, Ed Miliband was at an event with Vince Cable. Understandably some of Reid’s former colleagues are angry with him, and some have suggested that it is time for him to bow out. John Reid is many things, but he’s not the kind of person to retire quietly into the night. He’s still active on the Westminster political scene, and this is by no means the last we’ll be seeing of him. Not by a long shot.

The AV debate risks overshadowing what are arguably more important elections taking place on the same day. As Labour are clearly divided on AV, the Scottish, Welsh and local elections will clearly be used as a measure of how well Ed Miliband is performing as leader. On today’s evidence it’ll be a mixed bag. Scotland isn’t looking as good as it did a few weeks ago, with an article in The Times (£) suggesting that many in the party north of the border are anxious. Alex Salmond is a formidable politician, and as yet it doesn’t look like the party has a strategy to tackle him.

As the Guardian notes today, the local elections are a real-life opinion poll on the coalition’s performance so far. One place where the impact is likely to be felt is Nick Clegg’s home city of Sheffield. The Lib Dem leader of Sheffield council believes that the scale of cuts could send the city Labour. That’s looking like a real possibility, and – never wanting to miss a passing bandwagon – we’re hoping to spend some time in Sheffield on election day. Stay tuned for that.

And finally, Ed Miliband will be looking to build momentum today as he hosts another press conference at Labour HQ today. Last week he was able to ambush the Tories over the NHS as Andrew Lansley received his crushing vote of no confidence. What do they have planned this week? The theme will be opportunities for young people. We’ll be covering it live from 10am.