What a difference a day makes. Ed Miliband, with his bid for the centre ground framed around the slogan of ‘One Nation’, won much praise yesterday.
The speech, though light on policy, won praise from many corners. He started the speech looking like a man who would struggle to win a general election, despite a healthy poll lead, he finished it looking like a man who had a fighting chance with the odds in his favour.
And why not take the quintessentially Conservative idea of One Nation? At a time when issues such as immigration and independence are so high on the political agenda, when the gap between rich and poor seems to be growing, it is a smart idea to co-opt and idea that is based on reducing the gap between rich and poor and tackling social problems.
It has worked for Labour before. Tony Blair used it, but it has never been so forcefully articulated as it was in Manchester yesterday.
A lot more people will I’m sure be taking notice of Miliband today including those sitting on the Government benches.
There was praise also from the likes of the Telegraph:
“Two years into his leadership of the Labour Party, Ed Miliband finally demonstrated yesterday that he can carry off the job with panache. In a virtuoso platform display at Labour’s annual conference in Manchester he spoke with fluency, humour and passion – and without notes – in a manner that confounded those who had written him off as a worthy but dull political pointy-head.”
While there was much praise from inside the Labour Party, and from the Tory press, there was also an immediate reaction from the bookies.
After his speech to conference, William Hill have cut its odds for Miliband to lead Labour into the next general election from 4/11 to 2/9, and lengthened him from 2/1 to 3/1 to be out of the job by then.
Graham Sharpe, spokesman at William Hill, said “Ed’s speech was well received, he spoke well without notes and we expect him to keep his job at least until the next general election. William Hill now make Ed Miliband 10/11 favourite to be the next person to be prime minister.”
It was, however, just one speech. The public needs to see a lot more like this with policy to back it to build on the foundations that Miliband has laid with One Nation.
