Miliband’s Message: Neoliberalism is Dead. But What Comes Next?

I know one isn’t supposed to say this but there was an idea somewhere in the middle of Ed Miliband’s confused speech to the Labour party conference. Unfortunately it was smothered by 4000 words of contradictory waffling that, accompanied by Miliband’s desperate delivery, made the whole thing almost unbearable. If the Labour leader lacks presence that can’t be helped, but nor was he assisted by the tired format of these conference addresses. That is something he could have done something about, so to speak.

And the idea was simple: the neoliberal age has ended. He could, even should, have been clearer about this. Had he been so, his speech would have been more coherent and, for that matter, gracious. It would have allowed him to praise the best parts of the Thatcher-Blair era before arguing that the problems rightly addressed in the 1980s and 1990s are not the problems that face Britain now.