Blog
Ed Miliband’s Leader’s Speech
3rd October 2012
Was the speech as success? What do the media think? And what IS One Nation anyway?
Ed Miliband’s Speech:
The Labour Conference had three tasks this week:
1. To present Ed as a credible Prime Minister and a more attractive figure for voters.
2. To present some clear, memorable policies – to be FOR some things rather than just AGAINST the coalition.
3. To lay to rest the mistakes and reputation of the Brown government.
Ed Miliband’s speech made considerable progress on 1, produced a few ideas for 2 (such as the technical baccalaureate) but did nothing for 3. It will remain a weakness for Labour that the Conservatives can so directly link Ed and Ed Balls to the worst aspects of the Brown government – much will be made of this at the 2015 election!
Miliband stole Cameron’s style – speaking from memory without a lectern – and the One Nation idea of an earlier Conservative, Benjamin Disraeli (PM 1868 & 1874-80):. The idea of One Nation is that the Conservative Party should have policies for and should appeal to all parts of the population. In particular, Disraeli believed that the Conservatives had a responsibility to address the extreme poverty of those at the bottom of society. This became one of the main schools of thought within the Party and was the dominant one for the post war period, from 1945-1979.
Where to start with the huge amount of media coverage this morning?
The best way to catch up is to watch the news report and the debate which follows it on Newsnight via i-player:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01n7dbm/Newsnight_02_10_2012/
The balance of opinion, yesterday on twitter and today in the ‘papers, seems to be positive.
So you could contrast a positive comment:
Mary Riddell in the Telegraph saying that the speech showed he had better leadership qualities than previously seem
Negative comment includes:
John Rentoul who criticizes the speech for lacking substance and not being new in style either:
http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/10/02/even-worse-than-i-thought-it-would-be/
and from further left, Seamus Milne who says Miliband has to move clearly away from New Labour:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/02/miliband-further-from-new-labour