Ed miliband

David Miliband is one of those politicians who speeches improve when you read them on paper, his delivery still distracts more than it adds. If the Labour party is going to pick the Miliband who is the more natural platform speaker then David hasn’t got much of a chance. But if they want the Miliband who is more prepared to think about why Labour really lost then David might well be their man. On Saturday, Ed Miliband talked about how Iraq, a ‘casualness’ about civil liberties and a failure to regulate the banks properly had cost Labour the election. This might be Ed Miliband’s genuine analysis but it is also what Labour members want to hear: Labour lost because it wasn’t Labour enough.

Ed Miliband has given a surprisingly good speech this morning: free from all the junk language that his older brother has a weakness for. But he raises an interesting question: Why did Gisela Stuart win in Birmingham Edgbaston? Why did Karen Buck win Westminster North? Why did Andy Slaughter win in Hammersmith? Might it have been because all three of these politicians were, at one point, thorns in the flesh of their government? That they all at times campaigned, on principle, against the Labour government? As I said in The Times yesterday, the German-born Ms Stuart was a committed foe of the EU Constitution - who denounced it, and the Lisbon Treaty, as loudly as she could.

With the Sun reporting that Ed Miliband is going to stand for the Labour leadership, it's probably a good time to dig out Anne McElvoy's profile of the Miliband brothers for the Sunday Times last month. To my mind, its opening neatly encapsulates the choice between the wonkish one and the slighty-less-wonkish one that Labour may have to make: "When David and Ed Miliband were teenagers, their north London household rang to the chatter of some of the most prominent left-wing names of the era: Tony Benn, Tariq Ali, the ANC leader Joe Slovo and the late Michael Foot. David, one regular guest recalls, would sit 'absorbing it all' and asking interested questions of the grandees.

The sole current political certainty is that Nick Clegg will not prop-up Gordon Brown. Clegg holds Brown personally responsible for 13 years of failure and not even political marriages can be built on enmity.  Labour’s choice is clear: remove Brown to accommodate Clegg. The Sunday Times reports plots are afoot to kill Gordon ‘with dignity’. But euthanasia is messy. Two options are being discussed. First, Brown would be given a year to make a final indelible mark on Britain before shipping himself off to Westminster’s version of Dignitas. I think we can all see the problem with that cunning scheme, and Nick Clegg certainly will.

Freeing Manchester United from the Glazers is not what I envisaged when Ed Miliband promised ‘a radical manifesto’. But the Guardian reports that a fourth Labour government will legislate so that football fans can buy their beloved clubs. Clearly Brown's granite is plastic to the touch. I’ll reserve judgement until the manifestos are published, but, as Alex notes, the feeling is that New Labour's zeal is exhausted. Budget initiatives on stamp duty and the retirement age originated in Tory press releases and the Queen’s Speech regurgitated policies dating back to the 2007-08 sitting. I suspect the manifesto will offer the same gristle. We should be thankful for small mercies because so few bills have made it onto the statute book.

Ed Miliband certainly isn't one for holding back, is he?  In an interview with today's Guardian he discusses what we might expect from the Labour manifesto, and there's some pretty noteworthy stuff in there: a People's Bank based around the network of Post Offices; an increase in the minimum wage; a reduction in the voting age to 16; things like that. But, as Sunder Katwala suggests over at Next Left, the most eye-catching passage is when Miliband discusses Free School Meals for all: "The manifesto could well include a pledge to provide free school meals for all children, Miliband says. 'I think a lot of people would like free school meals.

According to Laura Kuenssberg, Lord Stern is not an official advisor but confirms that he is consulting with the Tories on their climate change policy. As Iain Martin notes, what bizarre timing. The UEA and IPCC scandals simmer and Ed Miliband recently declared war on reason – which has almost certainly reduced James Delingpole to tears of fear. Even more extraordinary, The Sunday Telegraph reported that findings in the Stern report, which defined climate change policy, were “severely edited” before publication. ‘But it can be revealed that when the report was printed by Cambridge University Press in January 2007, some of these predictions had been watered down because the scientific evidence on which they were based could not be verified.

Politicians have to shout to be heard over the lurid tale of John Terry's bordello, but Ed Miliband’s fervour for climate change is sufficiently shrill. He has declared “war” on “sceptics”, who have been rather jaunty of late. As Fraser noted yesterday, the press’ climate change narrative is shifting – scepticism, in its proper sense, is replacing blind subscription. In this context, Miliband’s comments are extraordinary. His intellectual complacency is irritating, his sanctimony nauseating and his hypocrisy palpable. “It's right that there's rigour applied to all the reports about climate change, but I think it would be wrong that when a mistake is made it's somehow used to undermine the overwhelming picture that's there.

There's that prism I mentioned: Ed Miliband writes an article for the Observer, which ostensibly backs Gordon Brown in the first paragraph, and it's written up as the first, tentative step on his own leadership campaign.  Thing is, that's probably also true.  The clue is in how far he steps off his ministerial beat*, to deliver an overall prospectus for the Labour Party: "Let's start, as our manifesto will, with what the country needs in the coming five years. It can't be about business as usual. We need to rebuild our economy in a different way from the past, with more jobs in real engineering not just financial engineering.

I wouldn't be surprised if this Gordon Brown snippet gets deployed ad nauseam between now and the next election: "[Brown] described Labour as the party of 'prosperity not austerity'" If so, it's worth noting that it's a phrase that Ed Miliband used in several speeches last year (e.g. here, here and here).  But, whoever its author, it's hard to imagine it working for a governing party which has presided over one of the most spectacular busts in our history.

It's Tuesday, so it's time to sift through Rachel Sylvester's column for juicy quotes.  In her latest, she saves the best for last: a Cabinet minister saying that "It’s up to the brotherhood now".  No, not that brotherhood – but the brothers Miliband, Ed and David.  The intimation being that they need to take over from Brown – and sharpish. There's been plenty of speculation about the Milibands recently, so this latest titbit shouldn't come as too much of a surprise.  But, to my mind, it's interesting how this minister packages Ed and David together – as the "brotherhood".  It has generally been assumed that one or the other wouldn't run for the leadership if the other one did.

For the Kremlinologists among us, Andrew Grice has an insightful article in today's Independent on the growing support for Ed Miliband in the Labour Party.  He kicks it off by asking the pivotal question when it comes to the Brothers Miliband - "Will Ed Miliband eclipse brother David?" - and follows that up with some affirmative evidence: "...the word in Labour circles is that Ed is no longer trailing in his brother's wake. Indeed, some senior figures believe he has already overtaken him in the game that increasingly occupies Labour minds as the party appears to head for a general election defeat – its future leadership stakes... ...friends are quietly telling [Ed] that David will not be leader because he is seen as too Blairite.