The wrong Ed

On Saturday afternoon while I was watching Arsenal capitulate to West Brom, Labour announced that Ed Miliband was the newly elected leader of the party. The Labour conference held this year in Manchester ( what's wrong with seaside towns) was the venue for the announcement . Of course the media picked up on the closeness of the result, the fact that Ed Miliband did not secure a majority vote amongst members or MPs and the Mail coined " Red Ed !"

Ed Miliband's strategy to become leader was all too obvious, the only way he could defeat his brother was to position himself to the left and hope to pick up second preference votes. The strategy worked, In the 24 hours after the result was declared, Ed Miliband appeared on the Andrew Marr programme, and Miliband worked at showing that he was not "Red Ed". However the real performance of the weekend was Jon Soppel's interview with Ed Balls, who produced the type of performance that suggested that he was the one Labour headliner who could battle the Coalition in Parliament.

In all honesty I'm far from impressed by Miliband, perhaps because as Minister for Climate Change he tended to talk a good job, but failed to deliver, none more so than at Copenhagen.

Whether he genuinely wants to reduce inequality and tackle climate change only time will tell.