Martin Bright

What Miliband must learn from Cameron: a speech is not a policy paper

I have been so annoyed by Ed Miliband’s speech to Labour Party conference that I haven’t been able to bring myself to write about it.

As the Tories gather in Manchester I should really be turning my thoughts to things Conservative, but I can’t stop thinking about last Tuesday.

In Liverpool Labour loyalists kept telling me to read the whole thing again – and there is no doubt that this is a serious attempt to redefine the centre-ground of British politics. Polly Toynbee from the left and Peter Oborne agreed that this was an important, near-epochal attack on vested interests.

According to Toynbee, far from lurching to the Left, Miliband was speaking for the common man and woman: “Even after the crash Labour dared not speak a word of blame, but this leader was ready to say what you hear outside any school gate, in any pub, on any doorstep.

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