Ed's day . . .

So it’s Ed’s day today; and what a task he has. Showing how he can unite the LP and Trade Union movement into a group that has the will and ability to move forward and, in time (as short a time as possible) lead the country again. This may be challenging, but it’s nothing like the challenge, for instance, that faced Neil Kinnock when he took over - now there was a divided party!

Not unnaturally, Ed is being portrayed as too far this, or in hock to that . . . not elected by this group, out numbered by that one. I say this is not unnatural, because we must face the fact that the press and media are in this to make stories and for journalists to make their names. And if it’s at the expense of good government - so be it.

Ed must grip his helm and steer as steady a course as he can. He’s at present saying many of the right things - he’s already said he won’t be held hostage by the TUs and the TUs, in their turn, say they won’t hold him hostage. Stick to those statements - we trust you have made them in good faith. Ed realises (as must Party members and TU members) that we must reconnect with our traditional supporters . . . I think we never forgot them, but we lost contact with them, allowed a perception to grow that we’d forgotten them. But so, too, must we attract the better-off individuals - holding to the middle ground and, as David M pointed out, shifting it - which the Party, in government, did in several policy areas.

It won’t be possible for Ed to say much, today, but he can lay out some guiding principles. He must convince us that he can lead, and that he will lead. That he will say ‘no’ as well as ‘yes’. He’s lucky; for the most part, unlike Kinnock, he addresses a party that has the will be be convinced and united.

As far as David goes . . . I do hope he stays on, stays on to give it a chance. We want (and need) his formidable skills. But the media wolves may have the final say . . . their self-created and self-centred soap opera makes good copy and they won’t give that up easily. If David goes, because he feels that on-going soap is just too damaging, that must be his call - and who can blame him?