Impressive Ed

Ok, alright, I admit it. Ed Miliband has impressed me.

The election of the Shadow Cabinet was always going to be heavily scrutinised to see how much of a break with the past Labour MPs were willing to stomach in the face of such a forthright speech from their new Leader.

It's a curious situation to have to be in - wanting to take your Party forward, and to stamp your authority on your appointments, but still being hamstrung by Labour's rather torturous election regulations. Full credit, then, to Miliband Jnr. for acting to ensure that Nick Brown, one of the archetypal links to Gordon Brown, will not be contesting the Chief Whip position.

There were those that said that in electing Ed, rather than David Miliband, Labour were lumbering themselves with the more ineffective brother. This kind of ruthlessness, however, is hardly the mark of an ineffective leader. Instead, it is reminiscent of the swift changes David Cameron made to change the focus of the Conservative Party after he came to power in 2005. After a slightly lukewarm Conference speech, it seems the Leader of the Opposition is finding his feet. Interesting...

Leaders' Debates - they work!

In between all the coverage, the spinning, the 'who beat who and who was paying' of the 12hrs or so since the first Leaders' Debate, one thing has really struck me. The Debates work. They really work.

Yesterday my non-political friends would normally shudder, sleep, or hide (or all three) whenever I tried to talk to them about the election. This morning, quite the reverse - there is huge debate about the political Parties and their policies. One colleague who admitted she couldn't pick Nick Clegg out of a line-up before last night is now considering voting for him. There's a discussion in our kitchen as to why David Cameron slightly dodged an answer on police spending; was it that he didn't have enough time to get into the detail, or is there something wrong there? Our team meeting this morning kicked off with a chat about whether Gordon Brown is simply unable to get his personality across or whether, god forbid, he has and that's actually it!

Put simply, there's a buzz about the whole election in a way that I haven't seen for some time. People are interested; they're re-engaging with politics. Could the debates be the catalyst that finally allows people to forget about the excesses of politicians, or at least allows them to separate politicians from politics and policy?

I tell you that's Gordon Brown!*

High drama in my office today as none other than the PM came to 80 Victoria Street on the campaign trail. He was there to visit Microsoft's UK headquarters for his 'People's PMQs', which was webcast on MSN.

The event wasn't a particular success, with only 120 people logging on to watch the chat. That said, the presence of multiple security guards and a whole motorcade of police bikes outside did allow for some mild entertainment for the rest of us. My EA was particularly excited, e-mailing me that she'd just walked past him in the lobby, with camera following behind.

Alas, it arrived in the inbox too late to arrange any kind of waggish 'vote for change' placard antics, so I had to make do with sneaking a picture of the PMs Jag, Range Rover, and police escort. Excuse the picture quality, but I had to take it on the sly, or risk being stopped and searched for suspicious activity...

* For those not in the know, a reference to the imcomparable Galton and Simpson

Brown Bashing

One name was on everyone’s lips this weekend...No, not David Cameron...No, not even George Osborne...William Hague?...Of course not. No, the name that appeared at least once in every speech at this year’s Conference was Gordon Brown. It seems the electoral ploy this time around is to ignore the Labour Party, or the Cabinet, and place every failure of the last few years solely at the door of a so-called weak, dithering, bullying Prime Minister.

I can understand the reasoning. Public opinion definitely supports the idea that Gordon Brown is an unpopular leader, and when voters cast their votes on May 6 (or whenever polling day is) the thought of five more years with him at the helm will sway a good number of undecideds. I'm not sure, however, that they need it rammed down their throats with quite so much force.

The danger with all of this Brown bashing is that the Conservatives slip back into the being seen as the ‘nasty party’ and play to fears of the more right-wing, strident Conservativism of the past. Modernising and softening the Tory message has always been the hardest part of ‘Project Cameron’, but it has been achieved with some success. The challenge is now to enlighten an electorate who still aren’t quite sure what his Party now stands for, and at the same time to allay those ‘same old Tory’ fears. To lead with personal attacks on the Prime Minister won't help achieve this aim, particularly if we are truly to sell the Conservatives as the party to mend the country’s ‘Broken Politics’ in the coming election.

Talking about Gordon Brown might stop people marking an ‘X’ next to Labour at the election, but will it make them want to put it next to the Conservative tree? This is the second half of the equation we need to solve come May. I would argue that driving home attractive policy messages with a decent level of detail is the way to do it.

Marketeers and head-hunters alike always talk about push and pull factors. It’s all very good pushing voters away from Brown and the Labour party, but without a matching pull to the Conservatives we’ll never get the election result we want, and the country needs.