Advice for Ed Miliband, part 567

There is now so much advice coming in for Ed Miliband that it needs classifying. There’s the Miliband-must-behave-like-this advice from all and sundry: he should talk more about the economy, talk less about the economy, shout a lot about things, talk more about policy, complain more about this and that and so on. The advice is so diverse that Miliband would end up looking like Francis Henshall in One Man, Two Guvnors if he tried to fulfil it all.

But there’s a second species of advice, which is on what big policy issue Miliband should back or oppose, partly out of principle and partly to make life very difficult for the Coalition. Today’s front pages carry two ‘pressure on Miliband stories’ on high-speed rail and an EU referendum, with the Financial Times reporting increasing momentum in the shadow cabinet for the Labour leader to ‘lance the EU boil’ by committing to a referendum, and Alistair Darling announcing in The Times that he now opposes HS2.