Laugh now, but Ed Miliband and Ed Balls could soon be running the country

A Tory MP bobbed up at Prime Minister’s Questions recently to ask David Cameron whether he was ‘aware that 4 per cent of people believe that Elvis is still alive? That is double the number, we hear today, who think that Edward Miliband is a natural leader?’ The Tory benches tittered, Labour MPs slumped into their seats as if this was a depressingly fair point, and the Labour leader himself tried not to look too hurt.

The exchange reflected a Westminster consensus that the idea of Miliband as prime minister is risible. His aestas horribilis has reinforced the view among many in the political class that he simply doesn’t have what it takes to be leader. Those supporters of his brother David who greeted his victory by bitterly declaring that Labour had just lost the next election have been out in force in recent weeks.

Perhaps the person in SW1 least affected by all this is Miliband himself. He is used to being written off by the pundits. His friends love to point out that these self same soothsayers were convinced that his brother would beat him to the leadership. He says he has learned to take opinion polls ‘with a pinch of sugar’.

One hopes he also applies the same medicine to his morning newspapers — the press are now going after him with the same enthusiasm with which they went for Neil Kinnock. But the most damaging depiction of him is not as a dangerous socialist but as the lead character from Wallace & Gromit. He is mocked rather than feared.