Ed Miliband's conference speech live stream

[FrancesMumsnet]

Live stream of Ed Miliband's speech here if you're interested:

Funnily enough the Tory papers seemed to quite rate his speech - the Telegraph is quite complimentary.

Let's wait and see what the Mail says - that is the people's paper. I'm not sure which paper Thrasher prefers to read, but my guess is it is probably the Telegraph.

i should probably say that i would be unlikely to vote labour anyway, and it really wouldn't matter in the constituency i live in if i did.

Ed isn't courting me. But he's got a hard sell with that voice if he wants to bring back disgruntled Labour grass roots by trying to tell them he's just like them. He's got a harder sell still if he's actually going to support what the ConDems are doing whilst making noises against them at every point -

Where's the credibility?

What's his USP - why should people vote for him ?

A few faux pas by the Tories a few weeks before the election, leaked condescension towards the public and they will lose the election. The public does not like being insulted openly. Ed is a good man and Labour do have a greater affinity with the majority of the public, so if they court the 'squeezed middle' and if the Tories drop some clangers, then Labour could easily sweep back in.

Brown lost the election when he called a member of the public a bigoted woman. If teh Tories commit a similar faux pas and call the public plebs or anything similar, the public will turf them out on their ear and welcome Miliband in.

i think there has been some sabotage - from within perhaps - certainly the Education department hasn't been watertight and you have to wonder why.

the amount of leakage and going-off-half-cocked has been really damaging to govt credibility. They need their house in order.

And they just can't afford to have the chief Whip not behaving himself.

Gordon Brown might have been a known bully, but that seemed to have been kept under wraps for a long time....it looks like all mistakes are getting air time.

Yes, I agree that Gove has had a tough time, but he is so good that he has risen way above it. There has been a downward slide ever since the threatened fuel strikes, with one mistake after another handing open goals to Labour.

Now Labour think that they only have to attract the 'squeezed middle', to sell the 'one nation' concept and claim that the Tories are for two nations, in order to roll back into power.

claig i see the leakage from education as a weakness on the part of the minister - Gove needs to find out who's doing that and give them the boot.

He could also use coming up with some better ideas, rather than recycling old ones.

No, the Tories are the ones who are really from another planet.

I was at Oxford with George Osborne. Didn't know him or of him, even though he did my subject, in my year - he was a nothing - not a big fish at all.) While I was there, the student newspaper, Cherwell, always had a gossip column - written obviously by different student journos each term. Usually, it featured well-known figures likes student politicos or well-known thesps - but one term the journo writing it was (in retrospect, i wondered what the hell was going on at the time) a member of the Bullingdon Club. There was a whole term where the gossip column read like something out of Jeeves and Wooster - it was all Lord So-And_so and the Hon Such-and-Such have been very naughty boys and pulled their trousers down at Restaurant X, ha ha ha, oh it was such a scream and Biffy Throgmorton hit a porter! bla bla bla...

It made no sense at the time as - contrary to stereotype - Oxford is nothing like that at all and I never met a single Bullingdon type nor were their activities of the slightest interest to anyone outside their very small social circle.

Now wish i'd kept copies of the papers as the miscreants were all named and doubtless included one Hon George Osborne and several Tory Party donors - would make interesting reading now.

So no, they are nothing like normal people...

Edgar, Gove was new in the job, and it looks like he was leaked against early on. But, he is made of stern stuff. He is one of the Tory stars.

Not leaked against. I can't remember it exactly, but I think he may have been given information that turned out to be wrong early on.

claig - the Mail readers love the speech - quoted in full

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2211754/Ed-Milibands-speech-Labour-conference-accuses-Tories-incompetent-touch-U-turning-make-miserable-shower.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

so that's the election sewn up if you're right!

"I'll bet my bottom dollar that Ed Milliband didn't go to the same kind of sink comp that I and my contemporaries attended."

I went to Haverstock school, a few years later than the Milibands (I'm 37). And it was a pretty rubbish school IMO when I was there. I have fond memories of continually bunking off, smoking spliffs, mucking around. I was considered one of the good pupils as I was polite and bright. Very few of the teachers reported non-attendance (you knew which ones did!) It was a school in crisis with demoralised teachers IIRC.

It did have a good reputation, a few years before (which is how I ended up there) and I imagine it was much better when Miliband was there, before it went downhill. However, I don't imagine the make-up of the school changed much - when I started there it was still coasting on its previous reputation.

There was a genuines mix of races and classes. Sure there were middle class kids there, but equally the school is flanked by estates and there were loads of working class kids there too, it was a proper comprehensive.

I'm sad I missed the speech as I saw a clip of my old school playground on the advert for it, and I was looking forward to reminiscing :)

bread, you are right, the Mail gives the speech a good writeup, and teh best rated comments of readers all support Miliband, which is a bit surprising and does make you wonder if Labour conference attendees have been hitting the Mail's green arrows.

It shows how unpopular the Coalition is becoming.

Or the speech was such a no hope that Daily Fail readers felt reassured

I really hate all this class war stuff. It's not OK to judge people on who their parents were and what school they went to. It's fine to say "my parents had their struggles and I learned ..." but to suggest that you are a better or worse person or politician because you went to a certain sort of school or university is bollocks. Milliband is absolutely not a man of the people. It's pathetic that he tries to be. Yes, he went to a state secondary but the state secondary my kids will go to is a hell of a lot better than the private school I had a scholarship to as a teenager. Mind you, it was streets ahead of my local comp so I am not complaining.

I mean, looking at other current and recent leaders:
Nick Clegg is from an immigrant family and married to a (brilliant and beautiful) foreigner
Michael Howard's family were immigrants
John Major had a crap education
Neil Kinnock was a bit thick but a lovely boyo (oops ;) )

Talkin I think you are spot on with that.

It is utterly ridiculous that we now have a situation where the political classes are arguing amongst themselves about who is the least privileged.

Oh, I'm too irate to read & reply properly.

Miliband sounded exactly like Cameron. I'm fairly certain he used some of the same phrases; the ones about having purpose, being true to himself & so on.
Clegg appears to be positioning his party as a handy leaning-post for whichever other party gets 1 more vote.
I noticed a throwaway line in the commentary: "80% of the cuts are still to come."
I don't think any of these lookalike numpties have enough balls to deal with the problems for their electorate's benefit.
I have lost the will to live.
:(

'I have lost the will to live.'

garlic, wait for next week. Gove has yet to speak, that might well be a game changer.

Gove???!!! Oh, claig, you do make me larf.

Still, he'd probably give us all a bible. We can burn them for warmth

I think I love Ed.

I think I do, too.

It was an amazing speech, which is good for everyone: strong opposition is healthy for the country.

The class stuff was a response, I guess, to that minister who called a policeman a 'pleb' and got away with it from Cameron. Outrageous!

Why shouldn't Mr Miliband be proud to go to his local inner London comp? It sends a message to children at state schools around the country that you do not have to go to a private school or a selective school to become a political leader, which they could be forgiven for thinking if Milliband had not stood up and said that.

I watched Ed. Pathetic.

For ed, a good speech. But as Cameron shows very well, a good speech does not make a good prime minister. Think support is symbolic of people getting rather fed up of Tory rhetoric and under performance. Whether that translates to support for labour is to early to say.

As for give, another politician the politicos love, but the gen public distrust him, so will be interesting to see how they play him next week.