Backlash over Labour's plans to freeze energy bills

Ed Miliband will be quizzed on his plans to freeze energy bills today when he puts himself up for questioning as the Labour Party conference draws to a close.

Fresh off the back of his widely-applauded keynote address in Brighton, the party leader will tour television studios before being quizzed by activists in a session in the main hall.

It comes as the memoirs of Gordon Brown's former spin doctor Damian McBride finally go on sale after a series of revelations dripped out over the course of the week in a Daily Mail serialisation.

Power Trip lifts the lid on the backroom operations of the Labour government at the height of its bitter internal battle between Tony Blair and Mr Brown and has dominated chatter around the conference centre.

Scotland Yard said last night it was considering a complaint by Tory MP Alun Cairns that "serious offences may have been committed" by the senior ex-Labour adviser. Mr McBride has said he is "ashamed and sorry" for his out-of-control briefing activities while acting for Mr Brown.

Mr Miliband will be hoping attention now shifts away from the contents of the book and moves onto the policy plans he unveiled yesterday, including the pledge to freeze energy bills until 2017 if Labour seizes power at the next election.

Gas and electricity prices will be frozen for homes and businesses for 20 months in a move Labour said would save the typical household £120 and an average business £1,800 between May 2015 and January 2017.

Consumer group Which? said the energy price freeze would "give hope to the millions worrying about how they can afford to heat their homes", just days after it reported that households have been paying £3.9 billion a year over the odds for their gas and electricity.

But CBI director general John Cridland said that businesses would view it as "a setback for Labour's pro-enterprise credentials".

An £800 million tax break to small businesses and promise to build 200,000 new homes a year were also among the election commitments Labour has unveiled as well as setting a green decarbonisation target for 2030, strengthening the minimum wage, helping create more than 100,000 new apprenticeships and repealing the so-called "bedroom tax".