"You can't trust the Tories with the NHS!"
The longest and most sustained round of applause during Ed Miliband's speech to the Labour Party conference came in response to this phrase. Conference speeches, especially at this point in the electoral cycle, are all about setting out who the enemy is and Ed did just that.
Until he arrived at this section, though, the reception for his speech was relatively cold. Earlier passages about making sure people get "something for something" in this "dangerous time for Britain" failed to get the crowd on his side.
Fred Goodwin, Nick Clegg, Rupert Murdoch and others all came in for personal attacks from a new Labour leader on a mission to define himself and his party. The mention of Tony Blair drew boos and jeers from the audience. The Labour rose behind him was blue (heaven forbid anyone said 'red Ed' this year). If we were meant to come away with an idea of who Ed Miliband isn't, this was a strong effort.
But then the point of this speech was never to unveil the beginnings of an election manifesto. The mentions of problem schools, benefit cheats, higher education didn't come with particularly focused solutions. Apart from the tuition fees announcement that preceded conference (and hasn't really been mentioned again, by the way), there's no detail at all. No mention was made of Libya or foreign policy at all, either.
There were a couple of well-crafted lines in there, such as the idea of standing up for 'producers not predators' on the economy and the exultant question 'how dare they say we’re all in it together?'. Ed's jokes at the start about with the arrival of his second son he is now raising 'a new generation of Miliband brothers' were about the best he could have done in a poisonous situation following last year's leadership election result.
This was a speech all about image and positioning. It wasn't a speech we're supposed to remember. This is a party and a leader dug in for the rest of the Parliament, determined not to blow any political capital they might have too early so that they can be in with a chance in 2015.
Comments
S Pickeh / September 27 2011 5:32pm
Caroline Crampton I find your article as a crap. setting out values is the most important thing and developing them takes sometime. We are 4 years to the next election why on earth should he be going into details. Ed should not be in any haste. As he said just be his own man.
Ed forget about this rubbish Tory journalist. We got the message and we will wok on that. It went down well come 2015.
For people like grumpy Caroline just shut up