Labour's next leader?
- 22 Sep 08, 04:47 PM
Don't build up your hopes they said before the speech of "Labour's next leader". David Miliband had only been given seven minutes to speak, they said, and, besides, he could only talk about foreign affairs. That's what you call depressing expectations.
When the speech came, though, it was more than 20 minutes long and strayed a long long way beyond foreign affairs. Thus, "Labour's next leader" hailed Gordon Brown for his achievements in the past - increasing international aid and banning cluster bombs - whilst stressing that what mattered was what Labour would do in the future.
Thus, he spoke of "defeating fatalism with hope" and made it abundantly plain that this is what he could offer his party. Thus, he sought to rouse the audience by declaring that "these Tories" (a Blair phrase) "are beatable". Nothing in the text was openly disloyal but everything about it declared "I'm here if you want me to lead you".
It was a much better speech than last year's although he still delivers a text like an eager company executive briefing his junior staff. The party was warm towards him although the hall was far from full for the biggest speech at this conference after Gordon Brown's.
This, then, felt like the performance of a man slowly establishing himself as one of his party's big players. However, from my position in the hall, I detected none of the buzz, none of the electricity, none of the raw anticipation necessary to inspire people to resign their ministerial jobs in order to depose a sitting prime minister.
