Answers on a Postcard
Jonathan Sheppard is left feeling uncertain about Labour's future after Ed Miliband's speech.
27 Sep 2011, 17:00
What message did Miliband get across?
As a non Labour voter his speech was not meant to appeal to me. It should have been used to hit home to the undecided or indeed those people who voted Lib Dem and indeed Tory who may be thinking twice about doing it again. Did that speech do the job? I'm totally unconvinced. Having the live feed go down when you are delivering your keynote speech is never helpful, and why the Labour leader makes his speech in the middle rather than the end of conference is beyond me. Pity the organisations holding fringes tomorrow when many delegates have gone home.
His speech probably cheered the party faithful in the hall, though it's surely a sign of political immaturity that delegates booed a Labour Prime Minister who delivered them three election victories. Miliband can only dream of being such a successful Labour Prime Minister.
I am left failing to understand how a future Labour Government would address the serious issues facing the country. All I know is that they don't seem to like what Blair and New Labour achieved and they don't like what the current Government is doing. Fine, but that doesn't really tell me what a future Labour Government will look like and do. If anyone knows, then answers on a postcard please.
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It fell between the stools.
It was neither a theoretical, principled route map for Labour for the next 4 years. A compass and map to guide the party and voters for the next few years.
Nor was it a detailed set of ideas, of practical take-home-and-build policies on specifics such as job, or tax, or Europe that would be ammunition for party workers and politicians.
I would not really expect the latter, as the election is too far away. But I expected the former. A full year in the job, and many years of dreaming about it, and he should have that done.
27/09/2011 21:01Where there was specifics, there were mixed messages - His "credit card analogy" is the opposite of what Ed Balls has said when they mention the deficit, and deny that a country debt is nothing like a personal debt.
He said that company taxes will be "the most competitive in the world" but Ed Balls yesterday said he would reverse the corp tax cut and put them up to cover the student fees.
A mess.
I heard him struggling this morning being interviewed by Nicky Campbell - hardly a heavyweight interviewer - on R5L.
Even if you think the "good business bad business" idea is something a government should be involved in (I'm not convinced), it's just completely unworkable.
28/09/2011 09:33