David Miliband is not backing down. Listening to him on the Jeremy Vine Show just now, it was noticeable how pleased he sounded when callers rung in to say how awful Brown was and how what Labour needed was a nice young man like him in charge. Indeed, when the final caller launched an assault on the Prime Minister’s character, Miliband offered only the must lukewarm praise for the PM and joked about the caller being his mother. At the top of the show, Miliband delivered the wonderfully ambiguous line, “I’ve always wanted to support Gordon as leader.”
Miliband’s performance showed how far he has to go before he can convince the public that he is cut-out for the top job. He lacks gravitas. The callers treated him with very little respect—a problem that will be compounded when voters become more familiar with what he looks like. More surprisingly, Miliband can’t do feel your pain. When a woman called in to complain about how difficult her life was now that her husband had been laid off and how she was getting no help from the government, Miliband started to lecture her before correcting himself. He was also patronising to the callers; there were a few too many dismissive actuallys.
Miliband might have picked up a few of Blair’s verbal ticks and mannerisms but he is nowhere near as good a communicator as Blair was back in 1994. In the presentation terms at least, Cameron is far more the heir—or, should we say successor—to Blair than Miliband is.
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