Uk politics

David Miliband is a tease. The speech he just gave was one of his best: it was self-deprecating, had gravitas, humour, and he spoke down to the Tories, telling William Hague what statesmanship was about. A monstrous conceit, CoffeeHousers may argue, but a Labour leader needs a bit of that; to make out that he’s the real leader-in-waiting, up against lightweights. There was his trademark little bit of grit in the speech: he praised the troops, the Afghan mission and criticised Cameron for reducing British diplomacy to trade missions (Con Coughlin made the same point in a Spectator cover piece recently). My point: that this was a measurably better speech

David Miliband’s address to the Labour conference ended as it began: with a  standing ovation. Sentimentality and sympathy, perhaps – but it was also deserved. This was a speech that his younger sibling will be hard pressed to match tomorrow. Indeed, I doubt even MiliD has matched it himself before now It began, of course, with an attempt to massage out the tensions of the past few days. There were some gags about how Miliband had draft speeches for Saturday and Tuesday on his computer – “so I’ve got a couple of speeches to draw on.” And he implored Labour to unite behind his brother – “we have a great

All eyes have turned to the future Labour front bench, particularly the identity of George Osborne’s shadow. Ed Balls has made his most obvious pitch yet. In a piece for the Guardian, bluntly titled ‘Now let’s offer a real choice – and nail the Tory lie on cuts’, he writes: ‘Being a united party is not enough. We must also win the argument. If we do not give people a positive reason to vote Labour, rather than just a temporary outlet for their protest, we will not persuade them to stick with us come the election.   First, on the economy – of course we will need tough choices to

There’s an odd mood in Manchester at the moment. The leadership election result has discombobulated the Labour establishment. In some circles, there is irritation that union votes delivered the leadership to Ed Miliband against the wishes of the MPs and party members. Others worry that this has all come too soon for Ed Miliband, that – in the words of one senior member of the last government – “he still doesn’t know what he thinks”. While others are still getting their heads round the family dynamic. It was striking that when people arrived in the conference hotel bar from the Ed Miliband victory party they were not mobbed. But Ed

The scrubbing job starts in earnest this morning, as Ed Miliband tries to erase that “Red” epithet from before his name. Exhibit A was his appearance on the Andrew Marr show, in which he took every opportunity to cast the manner of his victory in a favourable light. “If you look at this as one vote-one member, then I got more votes than anyone else,” he assured us, before going on to say that he won the union vote because, “I spoke about things that matter to working people in this country.” When asked whether he would sway under pressure from the union leadership, he averred, “I’m nobody’s man, I’m