How well did the Labour leader's speech address the concerns shown in polls of northern opinion last weekend? The Guardian Northerner's political commentator Ed Jacobs reflects
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Delegates try to catch the leader's eye. Has he finally caught the northern public's? Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA
As the Labour faithful gathered in Manchester for their annual get-together, we watched a conference that seemed to be somewhat flat, apart from the keynote speech by Ed Miliband which has been generally rated excellent.
Talk from last year's conference about the future of the leadership and whether Ed M could survive was non-existent, as poll ratings have consistently given the party a healthy lead over the Conservatives. If replicated at an election, this would hand the party the keys to Number 10 with a good majority.
Detailed policy announcements were never likely to be made, and despite huffing and puffing from the Tories and Lib Dems about a lack of such detail, the reality is, as William Hague's former adviser, Danny Finkelstein argued on Newsnight this week, that no opposition should show their cards so far from a general election.
So what was the point of the conference? In the words of the meerkat advert: simples. With poll ratings consistently showing Miliband trailing behind David Cameron when people are asked who would make the best Prime Minister, the Labour leader needed a speech that explained who he was; provided a vision for a Government under his leadership; and got the nation and the chattering classes comfortable with the idea of him in Downing Street.
Ed Miliband and Ed Balls at the conference. Still plenty of ground to be made up. Photograph: Ray Tang/Rex Features Did it work? And was the north in particular persuaded by his speech? As I write, polling figures on the impact have not yet been published and this weekend's numbers will be particularly interesting, especially given the ComRes poll for the Independent which, on the morning of the speech gave Labour just a 3% lead.
On Sunday, the Observer published its own polling data, compiled by Opinium, against which Miliband's speech can be judged: whether he properly addressed those areas identified by the north as being his weaknesses, and to what extent he played to his strengths.
The headline figures from the poll were fairly stark. Asked who would make the best Prime Minister, across all three regions, David Cameron polled just a few points higher than Miliband. Embarrassingly for the Labour leader, his lowest rating came with the mere 18% of people in Yorkshire and the Humber who felt he would make the best PM. This is the region in which both he and many members of his Shadow Cabinet including Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper have constituencies.
More difficult for the leadership will have been the findings that pointed to northern regions - those most supportive of the party - fairly clearly suggesting that they would be more likely to vote Labour without Miliband as leader - provided that the alternative was not the shadow Chancellor Ed Balls. Likewise, asked if they could imagine the Labour leader becoming PM, 61% of respondents in the north east said no; ditto in Yorkshire and the Humber and 60% in the north west.
Did the conference speech begin to change that? Asked for the Observer poll which of the three party leaders had a clear vision for the country, respondents left Miliband trailing Cameron, albeit slightly. With that in mind, putting aside the nine references to the word 'vision' in his speech, Miliband certainly succeeded in giving a clear label to his ambitions: One Nation. The critical task now is to put meat on the bones: what in practice 'One Nation' would mean for the everyday lives of northern voters.
Dizzy. One Nation worked for him. Photograph: John Jabez Edwin Mayall/Getty Images Asked which of the party leaders they would describe as weak, the polling for the Observer found Miliband trailing David Cameron significantly in the north and the Prime Minister also leading the Labour leader on who people feel is most competent. Addressing this point, Miliband launched a stinging and unambiguous attack on the Government, asking delegates:
Have you ever seen a more incompetent, hopeless, out of touch, u-turning, pledge-breaking, make it up as you go along, back of the envelope, miserable shower than this Prime Minister and this Government?
Expect Labour over the next two and half years to hammer home the point still further, using every opportunity available to crystallise in people's minds an association between the words 'incompetent' and 'Government'.
The good news for Miliband, particularly following Nick Clegg's admission last week that he had let people down by being unable to keep to his pledges on tuition fees, was that the Observer's poll put the Labour leader clearly ahead when voters were asked which party leader was most trustworthy. Whilst unlikely to use the same words, Miliband has space to carve out the position developed by Blair that he is a 'pretty straight kind of guy'. Public trust is likely to prove a major issue come the next election, even bigger than it is already.
Similarly, the 'One Nation' argument has the potential to tap into the belief in northern England that Miliband most cares about all sections of society, from, as he argued on Tuesday the
small business struggling against the odds to the home help struggling against the cuts.
Most significantly, with the battle over the economy always central to British politics, Labour will have been encouraged that Miliband and Ed Balls are seen in the north as a better team for the boardroom of UK PLC.
Being in opposition is difficult. You can say but not do, and opposition leaders always have trouble projecting themselves as future Prime Ministers. The person already in Number 10 at the time by default looks and sound more Prime Ministerial.
That said, Miliband needed a speech which got him noticed and articulated a vision, clear and free from policy mumo-jumbo, which Labour activists can now sell on the doorstop. That much he achieved. The questions now are what One Nation Labour would actually do with the levers of powers and crucially whether you, the voter, are convinced. For the politicians, that's the hard bit.