Cracked Bell

Peter Brookes in The Times

I haven't given up completely on Ed Miliband - where there's life there's hope, I suppose - but as Judge Judy would say, Ed's a grown up, 'fully cooked' politician - so I'm not sure what, if any, new tricks he has up his sleeve.

One thing's for sure, Ed does suffer from a real image problem - which makes it even more difficult to get his message (whatever it is) across - to the voting public.

Ed's not bald, too short or too fat - so he doesn't suffer from any of the physical  characteristics that are said to hold back male politicians in this day and age.

Although he does, unfortunately, come across as if all he's ever done in his whole life is to be involved in geek-boy things - like politics.

Which is surprising because just the other day for someone so steeped in politics he couldn't quite admit - in something of a car crash interview on BBC's Radio 4 - that if Labour do win the next general election, then public borrowing will go up.

I have to admit that I've assumed that all along - so why Ed should find it so difficult to spit the words out is something of a mystery - because ever since becoming Labour leader Ed Miliband has effectively positioned himself simply as a younger, wiser and more competent version of Gordon Brown.

So while Ed's position is secure until the next general election - he's not really facing up to the problems Labour has in being credible and forthright on the big issues - the economy, public spending, welfare, defence (including Trident) and immigration (in key parts of England where the issue is a very hot issue).

For a second opinion here's what Matthew Parris had to say the other day in The Times - now, in my view, Matthew is very fair minded when it comes to Labour politicians, yet he senses that something's not quite right - like the ring of a cracked bell.  

My Week: Martha was like a terrier with a rat, in for the kill

By Matthew Parris

He sounded peeved that Kearney had asked the question, as though it were out of order and the fault was hers

So there I was in the kitchen, mid-Monday, devising a way to germinate 11 red berries of Ruscus aculeatus (Butcher’s Broom) that I’d brought back from the Pyrenees, when I heard the sound of someone dying on the radio.

Funny, that, because I wasn’t even listening to the radio. It was just a background noise, BBC Radio 4, World at One, Martha Kearney interviewing someone, voice familiar, maybe I did half know it was Ed Miliband, maybe not, my attention was elsewhere.

But you know how it is sometimes, when your eye is caught by a bird on the ground, for instance, with its wing just not looking normal, and you know it’s been broken, or a mouse moving too slowly and you know it’s been poisoned. There was something in Mr Miliband’s voice, something cornered, something desperate, and something in Kearney’s manner, like a terrier with a rat, dogged, confident, closing for the kill ...

I hadn’t at that point even heard the words, just the noise, the death rattle. I left my berries, sat by the radio, and listened.

So often, when you hear a politician in trouble in an interview, you think: “Ouch — but I’d be stumped too; what else can he say?”

But this time the Labour leader’s behaviour simply baffled me.

You wouldn’t, please God you wouldn’t, declare in a major interview that you were going to spend £12 billion on a temporary reduction in VAT without having prepared your answer to the question: “Where’s the money coming from?”

Obviously, the money would have to be borrowed and — heaven knows I’m no economist — there’s probably a perfectly respectable case for such a plan even if as a Tory I’m inclined to resist it. But you can’t just refuse to say it’s going to be borrowed. People are going to press the question. Hadn’t he thought of that?

Yes, yes, I understand the media “strategy”, which was to avoid at all costs saying words that could be headlined, “ Labour will borrow to cut taxes — Miliband”, but it isn’t enough to take solemnly to heart a memo from your communications team that you mustn’t say words; you need to think of other words you can credibly say instead. Hadn’t he realised that?

He sounded peeved that Kearney had asked the question, as though it were out of order and the fault was hers.

I’ve a certain amount riding on Ed Miliband. I think him better than his chorus of critics say. I’ve tended to swim against the anti-Ed tide and talk him up. But during that Monday interview, something, somewhere, shifted.