well done ed

[Paul88]

Great to hear Ed standing up to humphrys this morning. He managed to make the most important points (it was a global financial crisis, not labour's fault and the thing that would have stopped it is more regulation of financial services, not less) and got humphrys rattled.

Let's hope he does better this year at getting the message across. Because actually he is right and our only hope is that he is our next PM.

Paul

I really do hope Labour manage to organise themselves. We do need a credible opposition and frankly at the moment they are a shambles. It would force the Tories & Lib Dems to up their game which can never be a bad thing.

They have no real plan except to tax the bankers but those sums don't add up. And they oppose every single cut whilst claiming they will make the same amount of cuts but never actually defining what they'd do instead.

As for next PM, I hope not. He's not PM material at all.

I think Labour have a long period in the wilderness ahead, not dissimilar to the Tories 1997-2010 years. I cannot see Labour being regarded as a credible government in waiting until those associated with the Brown premiership have been dispatched to the back benches. It will probably take a long time for the king makers in the party to get this message - at least one or two electoral defeats. This is quite apart from Eds lack of ideas and charisma.

Was it really a good performance? (I didn't hear it). If my Twitter timeline was to be believed, he was a disaster.

I hope he wasn't, as I like Ed - I'm hoping it just reflects the political allegiance of those people whose tweets I read this morning!

I heard it and didn't rate it that much. Like niceguy2 I'm only looking for evidence of a strong opposition but I thought he came across as rather tetchy, not statesmanlike at all. When Humphrys led a 'some people think you're not cut out for the role of leader' question, the response was somewhere between a splutter and a squeak. As Robinson remarked afterwards, some of Milliband's ideas are very good and even being taken up by the Coalition, but he's not breaking through in the polls.

I listened to him at lunchtime on BBC News. It was still all airy fairy fluffy words about building a fairer society but absolutely no tangible details about how.

Stuff nice words like 'passionate' and 'dedicated'.

What will you DO Ed? Which taxes would you raise? Which cuts would you make? I've heard all about the bankers tax which didn't add up. What other perhaps more credible plans do you have?

I did hear it and he sounded pretty pathetic to me. He has no "presence" and sounded like a schoolboy caught on the hop with no answers. If he thinks he is going to resolve the economic problems by taking bankers and using this to reduce tuition fees to £6k pa and means testing the winter fuel allowance - which were the only firm answers he was prepared to give - I'm afraid he is not going to be leader of the opposition for long.

Did he really say he'd use the bankers tax for reducing tuition fees & means testing the winter fuel allowance? Sheesh. The list of things this magical tax will pay for it getting longer.

Previously the estimated £2 billion raised was going to build 100,000 new affordable homes AND somehow be enough left over to pay for youth unemployment. Now it's going to reduce tuition fees and means test fuel allowance?

It's a difficult one.

Ed is trying to relaunch himself as someone to be trusted with the economy and to do that he has had to accept that many of the cuts the tories have made, will have to stay in place.

He also wants to party to accept that we are in a finacial tight spot and other austerity measures will be needed.

The difficulty is he got the leadership on the back of the unions and there is not a cat in hell's chance that they will accept cuts etc, they will just call for tax hikes.

His other difficulty is that he was in the circle of power when Brown made the decisions that Ed is trying to distance himself from.

His message; that Labour need to grasp this nettle and stop pretending all is well and set out some cold hard ideas for how to deal with it, is overdue and a good one. But I don't think Ed is the man to carry this particular message to the party of to the people.

He really does need some diction and presentation skill training if he is going to stand any chance of being taken seriously, he comes across as being petulant and immature. After he spoke on Radio 4 Thierry Henry was speking about his passion for his club and his desires to help newer players - he was far mor convincing!