You Gotta Have Faith
I listened to Ed Miliband's 'leader's speech' at the Labour party conference yesterday - the full bhuna I have to confess - not just the sound bites that made their way on to TV or into the newspaper headlines.
The whole affair left me completely unmoved - I also have to say - because the speech was full of platitudes and empty slogans - while saying nothing much at all about the tough times and choices facing the country.
What did interest me though was Ed's bizarre description of his commitment to politics as a 'faith' - because Ed, like myself, has always held himself out to be a non-religious person.
Now I couldn't really care two hoots whether Ed is an atheist, agnostic - or whether he believes in God for that matter - to my mind that's a personal matter and has nothing to do with his role as a politician.
But I detected a bit of fancy footwork here - a bit of careful repositioning or political 'spin' you might call it - so that Ed looks rather less frightening to the God brigade.
Which is presumably why Ed got married recently - after years of living perfectly happily with his partner - Justine Thornton - albeit in a previously unwedded state.
The fact that politicians do things to appear more 'normal' is not new - Tony Blair once famously told Gordon Brown he would never become Prime Minister unless he (Gordo) gave up his bachelor days and ways - and got himself married.
Shortly afterwards Gordon found himself a wife - of course.
Take another example - the one involving Ed Miliband going to his local comprehensive school instead of some fee paying school - for privileged toffs.
Which makes Ed 'one of us' in the Labour Tribe - instead of one of them.
Yet dig a little deeper in the Labour Party and what do you find?
Well you find that its deputy leader - Harriet Harman - went to an exclusive fee paying school as so did one of the new rising stars of the party - Labour's business spokesperson Chuka Umanna.
An even more obvious example is that of Labour's most successful leader ever - Tony Blair - who led the party to three successive general election victories.
Tony Blair was privately educated in Edinburgh of course - as was Labour's former Scottish leader, Iain Gray.
Yet no one in the Labour Party made a fuss at the time.
'Pot and kettle' is the phrase that springs to mind.
All this political spin and manipulation - is enough to try the patience of a saint.
