Ed miliband

Tuesday

Nick Cohen

Why hasn’t Labour sacked Ed Miliband?

If a bus driver were heading towards the edge of a cliff, the passengers would try to seize control of the wheel in all cases except one. Members of the Parliamentary Labour Party would sit back in their seats, put on their most confident smiles, and tell each other they were going full-speed ahead in the right direction. Ed Miliband is leading the Labour Party to disaster. His latest approval ratings are almost as bad as Nick Clegg’s  – which is not company any of us want to keep. Voters see him as an insipid waffler, too weak to stand up to foreign rulers or the trade unions.

Sunday

Mary Dejevsky

A Lab-Con coalition? It’s not as crazy as you think

In the few days since Conservative defector Douglas Carswell gave Ukip its first Westminster MP and John Bickley scared the pants off Ed Miliband by almost snatching Heywood and Middleton from Labour, there has been much talk of a broken mould and a new age in British politics. listen to ‘John Bickley: ‘If there was an Olympic medal for hypocrisy, Labour would win gold’’ on audioBoom Election geeks have posited half-a-dozen or more governing permutations in the event that Ukip makes big gains next May.

Thursday

Jeremy Vine

Jeremy Vine’s diary: Zipcars, hipster milk and the word that means I’m losing an argument

Last Tuesday I tried to sign up to a new life. My wife and I argued, slightly. ‘I don’t think this will work!’ she laughs, and I reply feebly: ‘But babe, it’s the future.’ (My use of the word ‘babe’ is like a label on the conversation — WARNING: HAVING ARGUMENT WHICH I AM ABOUT TO LOSE). She protests that she needs a car for ferrying kids and clearing the allotment and occasional 5.30 a.m. starts at work, and I produce a small piece of plastic and wave it, like Neville Chamberlain. This is my trump card. I have signed up to Zipcar. With this rectangle I can unlock a hire car from a nearby street and just drive. ‘It will be the end of petrol, insurance, repairs, mud and road tax!’ I say.

James Forsyth

The Lib Dems are the winners of conference season (and they haven’t even held theirs yet)

[audioplayer src="http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_2_Oct_2014_v4.mp3" title="James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman review the conference season" startat=604] Listen [/audioplayer]Normally, the last party conference season before an election clarifies matters. But, so far, this one has not. Instead, it has merely compounded the factors  that make the next election so difficult to call. The reason why people are reluctant to predict a Labour majority despite its current poll lead and the structural factors in its favour, is that it trails on the economy and leadership by margins that would usually be considered terminal. Its conference didn’t address these problems successfully. Indeed, with Ed Miliband forgetting the section on the deficit it has compounded them.

Wednesday

Hugo Rifkind

Politicians’ pyjamas: Cameron wears satin, Balls prefers a string vest and Hague, a kaftan

Let’s talk pyjamas. Specifically, let’s talk paisley pyjamas. Never mind what poor Mr Newmark had hanging out of his; concentrate on the garment itself. You never think of politicians in pyjamas. Although now I’ve started, and I just can’t stop. David Cameron, I suspect, used to sleep in tracky bottoms and a Smiths T-shirt until really quite recently. These days, though, it’ll be a suit of something expensive and slinky, maybe black satin, or green. While Ed Miliband’s pyjama situation you just know will be chaos. Possibly he still wears the now tight and farcical Thomas the Tank Engine ones he had when he was 11. Keeps meaning to buy new ones, never does. Ed Balls will sleep in black shorts and string vest. I am certain of this, but cannot say why.

James Forsyth

Why are the Tory party in such a good mood?

Two things have been puzzling Tory high-ups in Birmingham this week: does Nigel Farage have another defector in his back pocket, and why is the Tory party in such a good mood? Many expected that a second MP defecting to Ukip would have plunged the party into the slough of despond. One influential Tory, though, has an explanation for what’s going on. ‘The mood here is so upbeat because people think we’ve got Labour beat.’ He is, however, quick to add, ‘It is Ukip that is the problem.’ This is the paradox of British politics at the moment: it is easier to explain why either main party shouldn’t win the election than to advance an argument as to why they will.

Alex Massie

David Cameron’s message to Britain: winter is here but spring is coming

Better than Miliband is as fine a demonstration of the soft bigotry of low expectations as you possibly hope to find. Nevertheless, David Cameron's speech to the Tory conference today was better than Miliband's chat in Manchester last week. Quite a lot better, in fact. It was almost, gosh, good. listen to ‘Podcast special: David Cameron's speech’ on audioBoom True, it's not altogether clear how the promised tax cuts - for ordinary and less ordinary hard workers alike - will actually be paid for and, in the context of speech that promised no unfunded tax cuts, this might ordinarily be seen as a small problem. Presumably they will be back-loaded to come into force once the national accounts are balanced in 2018. If they are balanced by 2018, that is.

Tuesday

Alex Massie

Once upon a time David Cameron had a story to tell; he needs to remember it and tell it again

It is easy to inflate the importance of speeches made at party conferences. Particularly when those speeches are the last such set piece events before a general election. But they are still, in the end and at bottom, a distillation of what matters most to a leader. A guide to his priorities; a demonstration of his faith. Somewhere along the line David Cameron has lost that faith. He was elected leader of the Tory party in desperate times and became Prime Minister in dismal times. In both instances he triumphed, at least in part, because he persuaded his audience that though he might look like a traditional Tory he was in fact a rather different type of Tory from those voters had grown fond of despising. Once upon a time, you see, David Cameron had a story to tell.

Wednesday

Steerpike

Anything Bill can do, Ed can do too

The hall may have been half empty during his speech, but New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said lots of nice things about Ed Miliband during the closing session of Labour Party conference in Manchester. And the similarities between the two politicians are copious. They're both metropolitan lefties who are far more ideologically radical than they let on. Both face hostile media and talk about the rising cost of living. But that's mainly because Ed’s strategist are ripping off large parts of the winning Democrat’s playbook: Ed even recreated de Blasio’s widely mocked campaign gaffe of being photographed eating awkwardly.

Isabel Hardman

Four reasons why this year’s Labour party conference felt so weak

There are many reasons why Labour conference felt flat this year, and many of them are out of the party's control. It cannot help that its MPs and a number of its delegates are tired after an energetic Scottish campaign. It cannot help that the Scottish campaign saw a level of engagement in politics that cannot be replicated, save by another vote with a clear question and clear implications, and that would always have contrasted badly with the Labour conference. It cannot help that the referendum took place just days before the conference began, and that therefore it was impossible to get the same sort of coverage you'd expect in the run-up to your conference in the press.

Isabel Hardman

‘It just wasn’t a speech that you would say if you were Prime Minister.’

Labour conference has now finished. Today was better than the others, but the delegates still struggled to show their enthusiasm when Ed Miliband reappeared on the stage this afternoon. Three people gave him a standing ovation. The mood at this conference really has been flat. At a fringe run by the Fabian Society last night, I was mildly perturbed as a Spectator journalist to be told by one member that I and other members of the panel were probably being too optimistic about the party's prospects of getting into government. There have been a few notable moments when delegates seemed quite emotional, including during the powerful speech from 91-year old Harry Smith, which was the warm-up for Andy Burnham's own well-received speech. But those moments have not carried the conference.

Steerpike

Gareth, Ed, Hampstead Heath. What are you trying to tell us Newsnight?

Yesterday 'Gareth' was just the bloke from a software company, but Ed Miliband helped transform him into an internet sensation and telly star in a matter of hours after mentioning him in his lamentable conference speech. Normally politicians prefer to keep quiet about their encounters on Hampstead Heath. Hats off to Newsnight for this one...

James Forsyth

Ed Miliband’s unlucky conference

Ed Miliband is not having much luck this conference. First, there’s the fact that it has come straight after the Scottish referendum, making it feel a bit small. Second, other stories have kept intruding on and overshadowing conference. Finally, Miliband’s managed to forget two of the most important sections of his speech, the parts on the deficit and immigration. The missing paragraphs dominated, to Miliband’s audible irritation, his interview on the Today Programme. Miliband explained that he hadn’t meant to cut them out from the speech, but that they had just got lost as he delivered it. Now, to some extent, this is a process story.

Isabel Hardman

Ed Miliband: a prophet without notes

Why does Ed Miliband think memorising a speech is more important than convincing voters that Labour really can be tough on the deficit? It wasn't just his performance yesterday, in which the Labour leader failed to communicate key passages on the economy and immigration (James has them here), but the lack of candour from anyone on the stage about the scale of the challenge facing a Labour government if it came to power next year. Ed Balls said Labour was facing difficult, unpopular decisions, but then undermined his bad cop routine rather by announcing two relatively uncontroversial cuts. On the Today programme Miliband tried to argue that his speech had still contained points on the economy, but that one of the 'perils' of memorising speeches was that you might leave bits out.

Tuesday

John O'Neill

Miliband’s people

Have you met Ed Miliband recently? Then he probably namechecked you in his speech earlier today. Unless you talked about the deficit or immigration, that is. Here's the full list of people he met: 1. Josephine – a cleaner who hadn't decided how she would vote in the Scottish independence referendum. I was on my way to a public meeting. I was late as politicians tend to be. And just outside the meeting I met a woman and I was supposed to be going into the meeting but I wanted to stop and ask her how she was voting. I did that to everybody on the street. One vote at a time. I said to her “how are you voting?” she said “I haven’t decided yet.” Turned out her name was Josephine. She worked as a cleaner in the building.

James Forsyth

The deficit and immigration: were there two worse topics for Ed Miliband to forget?

No notes speech have been Ed Miliband’s political party trick. His One Nation speech two years ago ended speculation about his leadership and last year’s energy price freeze effort knocked the Tories off their stride for months. But today, the no notes speech hurt Miliband rather than helped him. Without an autocue, Miliband skipped bits of the speech. This has happened to him before, one year he missed out the section on the environment. But this year, Miliband missed out the bits he could least afford to: forgetting the sections on the deficit and immigration.

Fraser Nelson

Podcast special: Miliband’s speech, the verdict

Ed Miliband has spoken - for 65 minutes - snarling at Tories, while laying out his 10-year plan and presenting himself as the man who can shake up the complacent Westminster elite. James, Isabel and I were all there in Manchester and we met up straight afterwards to compare notes.

Isabel Hardman

Ed Miliband’s speech, like the rest of this conference, was poor but just about enough

Whether or not Ed Miliband's speech was a success depends on what sort of aim he had for it: heave Labour over the general election line using his party base, or reach out to wavering swing voters by arguing that Labour has the ability to govern in the challenging circumstances that it finds itself in after the 2015 election, that it has a vision for aspirational voters, and that it really understands why its working class voters deserted it in 2010. listen to ‘Ed Miliband's speech: podcast special’ on audioBoom Let's address the second aim first. It was not a good speech. It did not have a sufficiently well-crafted message. It did not contain stories that were sufficiently compelling.

Fraser Nelson

Miliband’s speech showed he couldn’t care less about leading ‘one nation’

I think I’m about the only journalist to have watched Ed Miliband’s speech and think it wasn’t awful. Here in Manchester, the consensus seems to be that this was as bad as a speech could be. And, admittedly, even I was tweeting rude things about it all of the way through (since when does anyone need a 10-year plan? Britain won a world war in six years). You may not like the politics but his speech was intellectually coherent, even pugnacious in parts. Sure, it was about an hour too long and had some worrying lacunas. His decision not to mention the economy was wise because he has nothing to say.

James Forsyth

Miliband’s dividing lines

The more we learn about Ed Miliband’s speech (to be given later this afternoon), the clearer the dividing lines that it is drawing are. The word is that Miliband will announce more money for the NHS paid for by a combination of taxes on mansions, hedge funds and big tobacco. The message: Labour stands up for the NHS while the Tories stand up for people who live in mansions, hedge funds and tobacco companies. This might be crude politics but it will, I suspect, be quite effective. It emphasises Labour’s biggest strength, that they are the party of the NHS and social solidarity, and highlights the Tories’ biggest weakness, the sense that they are the party of the rich who stand up for the wrong people.