Time for the real Ed Miliband to speak up

There is talk of Ed Miliband’s ‘New Generation’, but no indication of what it stands for. It has no clear views on the economy, student finance, defence and electoral reform. Despite his party’s lead in the polls, Ed Miliband is an inert political entity (and it did not help him that the party peaked in his absence).

Tim Montgomerie has rightly diagnosed a leadership vacuum. Miliband is timid before a parliamentary party that did not select him, and is struggling to acclimatise to a political discourse that the coalition government is moving beyond the terse liturgy of left and right. So far, Miliband’s banal default tactic has been to seek consensus. In contrast, Ed Balls has delineated his brief with stark clarity and combative verve, achieved independent of his leader. Small wonder Miliband fears him.

Balls aside, Labour is drifting on calm waters. But there is only so far it can travel before serenity breaks into tempest.