The odd man is turning up the volume
40 minutes late, and trailed by the BBC as “David”, it’s safe to say that Ed Miliband’s big relaunch speech didn’t go so well.
With leadership rumblings, widespread mocking and after a dire couple of weeks, this was Ed Miliband’s chance to nail down his 'responsible capitalism' theme.
Having floated his latest idea in his conference speech last September, the message was now honed and the anti-business rhetoric notably toned down. Not a predator in sight.
The Labour leader's self-important press team had heavily briefed whoever would listen that this speech was meant to be a “development” of the theme.
Forgive us then for expecting to receive more than words.
Viewers were subjected to an arduous moan about how the government had gazumped him for his best sound bites. Notions like the "squeezed middle", incidently not coined by Ed, but by Michael Dukakis in 1988, have been lifted, not because of Ed's political genius, but because the government's own focus groups are showing the same results as Labour's. There are painful lessons of opposition here: your themes, if they work, will be swiped from under your nose unless you can flesh them out and stamp them with your brand. This comes only with serious policy recommendations.
We get “why” now; you’ve said it enough. But if Miliband is to save his bacon, we need to hear “how”.
If the “more responsible capitalism” theme gave any notion of precisely how the egalitarian definition of 'fairness' can be “hard-wired into the economy” then perhaps it would be harder to shirk. Governments find it tricky to crib whole, firm policies, but ideas are hard to trade mark. Some opaque elocution about fairer taxes is not enough to explain how this redesign of our capitalistic system is going to happen. It excites no one. Not journalists, and certainly not the public.
Ed claimed that the he is leading the way, which must be why the his approval rating hovers around the minus 40 mark even amongst the Labour faithful. He may be good at sensing the mood turning (take the phone-hacking scandal peak, where he went from sipping champagne at Murdoch’s summer party to calling for blood in a matter of days), but the section of his speech that claimed he is somehow leading the debate should become a textbook example for any student looking at the art and science of political delusion.
What's likely to be painfully clear to Ed's inner circle is that far from the rampaging 2012 they all hope Her Majesty's Leader of the Opposition experiences, this year will be even more trying for Ed Miliband and the Labour Party than the last - and that is truly a harrowing prospect for them.
Harry Cole is the UK Political Editor for The Commentator and the News Editor for the Guido Fawkes Blog. He tweets at @MrHarryCole
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This gets better and better. My only concern is that I may one day begin to feel sorry for him...
"With leadership rumblings, widespread mocking and after a dire couple of weeks, this was Ed Miliband’s chance to nail down his 'responsible capitalism' theme." Capitalism is by its very nature 'responsible'. It's socialism and crony capitalism (i.e. Blairism) that are irresponsible.
Someone once said "Its ok to be disliked, but its over when you are openly mocked/ridicled".
Only 18 months in and Ed is being openly mocked, i kinda feel sorry for him, Take his "Blackbusters" gaff, that would have been funny had he actully wrote it and then apoloigsed, he would have seemed " More human"
If this was a boxing match.....
Good piece Harry :-)
The Labour MP will be mass debating each other to try and get a smile for the cameras
Despite Ed's lack of personal approval in the polls, Labour always seem to be either tied with the Tories or narrowly ahead. It has been this way pretty much since he became Opposition leader. So why then is this even an issue for the labour party? All those bolshy public sector workers accrued by the Labour party over the last 15 years aren't going to vote Tory, and they certainly aren't going to vote Lib dem now, so what do Labour have to worry about? Which demographic is actually switching to tory? someone explain this to me..
@George
Don't assume that everyone working in the public sector automatically votes Labour.
Both my parents and two of my siblings are/were 'public servants' and the destination of their votes is by no means guaranteed - in fact at least two of them wouldn't vote Labour if you had a gun to their heads.
The Labour party chose David. The unions elected Ed.
Serves them right.
There once was a man called Ed, whose politics were ghastly red, He hated the blues, thought they were fools, But would anyone notice he was dead
"Delusion" is a good word to use. Listening to Ed today was really quite uncomfortable. He speaks with the tone of a man who really, honestly believes that what he says is monumentally important. In fact, the opposite is true. Whatever arguments he puts across, they are nowadays totally eclipsed by his increasingly comedic uselessness.
Ed Milliband is suffering from Grandeur of Delusion. Poor man.
Alan Douglas
"but the section of his speech that claimed he is somehow leading the debate should become a textbook example for any student looking at the art and science of political delusion."
This is what marks Ed Miliband out as an obviously rather desperate politician - taking what you wish to be true, expressing it as though it were, and hoping that everyone will just accept it as the truth. Fortunately, most people aren't that easily fooled by such transparent wishful thinking. It's yet more evidence of politicians treating the public like fools, something New Labour types seem to do persistently without realising. It takes a particularly slick operator to get away with this sort of thing. Thankfully, Ed Miliband is no slick operator. We should be glad of that.
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Awesome headline writing......Good work Harry.