If only it had been PMQs yesterday morning, we surely would have heard Ed Miliband doing his damnedest to give the Home Office a pounding for failing to keep tabs on shambolic private security company G4S, contracted to secure the Olympics.

Or would we?

Miliband has come out today criticising the government for its outsourcing of police and security services “on a scale and at a speed never before seen”, and has hence been under attack from furious government bods, police minister Nick Herbert today calling the Labour leader’s remarks “cheap opportunism."

Yes, Ed’s called the G4S shambles a “scandal”, and has warned against over-use of outsourcing services from the public to private sector - but on the whole, the Tories have got off lightly from a party politics point of view.

Instead of mounting his trusty steed, his high horse, and wringing his plasticine hands, Ed has been measured and level-headed in response to the farcical Olympic organisational failings.

Instead of a sweeping indictment of security outsourcing, he has called public-private partnerships an “important part of modern policing”; instead of sniggering with the smug Germans, or weeping with distressed Londoners, about the soggy, bathetic mess of the Games, he is calmly supportive: “I am confident that we can have a safe and successful Olympic Games,” emphasising that “we are all behind that.”

He is using the recent Olympic chaos to raise wider questions about the nature of police outsourcing, warning us about PCCs being given “extremely wide-ranging powers to outsource services” and suggesting that private sector security staff should be accountable to the IPCC.

He is thinking beyond the open goals of security failings, corporate fast food sponsors, ludicrous copyright and advertising protocol, lost coaches of bemused foreign Olympic delegations, and, of course, the rain.

Solutions, rather than an incredulous frown and whimper of morality. Balance and support, rather than condemning the coalition for dropping the London 2012 baton handed over by Labour. Is Ed maturing, or foolishly missing an opportunity to kick Cameron while he’s down?

Tags: Ed Miliband, G4S, Labour, Nick herbert, Olympics, Police, Private, Public, Security, Tories