Maybe not quite as bad as the commentators have suggested. Certainly, it was no political lighting storm, but then we've just had one of those in the form of the Scottish referendum, and it was rather bad luck for Labour that their conference should come by just as the majority of the British public have had their annual politics fix. Most people - including the 'ordinary people' name checked by Ed Miliband in his widely panned conference speech - simply aren't engaged with politics. The chance of creating or rejecting a new nation seems to get them out, but a bog standard party conference isn't going to do the trick, so it would be unfair to be too condemning towards Labour on that front.
Nevertheless, this is an Opposition party that could form the next government heading towards another close election battle, so it is a failure on their part that they didn't even seem able to energise their own supporters. The most admired speech was from an elderly World War Two veteran, while the international guest speaker, Bill De Blasio, mayor of New York, failed to alight the passions of his fellow social democrats. The two shadow cabinet ministers who seemed to energise their audiences the most were probably Health shadow Andy Burnham (a not very secret contender for the leadership vacancy that most observers think will be sooner rather than later) and Yvette Cooper, shadow Home Secretary.
Miliband's own speech was a seriously uninteresting ragbag of anecdote and under the wire policy ruminations. His forgotten sections were all the more newsworthy for the remembered bits having been so dull. His party trick of seeking to memorise the speech probably tells us more about the disconnection of policy-wonks-turned-leaders who think memorising a speech is more important than its content, than it does about his actual policy priorities.
The excellent Spectator Coffee House blog, currently on very good form with several pithy, readable and shrewd updates each day, carries this analysis by Isabel Hardman of what was wrong with the Labour conference. Politics.co.uk meanwhile is more positive about Ed Miliband generally, but damning about this year's his speech.
Nevertheless, this is an Opposition party that could form the next government heading towards another close election battle, so it is a failure on their part that they didn't even seem able to energise their own supporters. The most admired speech was from an elderly World War Two veteran, while the international guest speaker, Bill De Blasio, mayor of New York, failed to alight the passions of his fellow social democrats. The two shadow cabinet ministers who seemed to energise their audiences the most were probably Health shadow Andy Burnham (a not very secret contender for the leadership vacancy that most observers think will be sooner rather than later) and Yvette Cooper, shadow Home Secretary.
Miliband's own speech was a seriously uninteresting ragbag of anecdote and under the wire policy ruminations. His forgotten sections were all the more newsworthy for the remembered bits having been so dull. His party trick of seeking to memorise the speech probably tells us more about the disconnection of policy-wonks-turned-leaders who think memorising a speech is more important than its content, than it does about his actual policy priorities.
The excellent Spectator Coffee House blog, currently on very good form with several pithy, readable and shrewd updates each day, carries this analysis by Isabel Hardman of what was wrong with the Labour conference. Politics.co.uk meanwhile is more positive about Ed Miliband generally, but damning about this year's his speech.
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