Ed Miliband is No Teddy Roosevelt

This is, I know, a statement of the obvious but Ed Miliband is no Teddy Roosevelt. There are two reasons to be thankful for this. First, TR was really a ghastly man; secondly, if Ed Miliband were able to muster a quarter of Roosevelt’s brio he’d be faring rather better than he is. In the present circumstances, the opposition should be thumping the government every day.

Granted, this requires more credibility than either Mr Miliband or Mr Balls can boast but the fact remains that a) George Osborne’s economic hopes have been vanquished by events and b) there is little substantive difference between his proposals and those made by Alistair Darling before the general election last year. Events have pushed the government towards accepting a timetable they once thought impossibly timid. (Of course, matters are complicated for the Eds by the inconvenient fact they opposed Darling’s approach too, albeit from the left not the right.