Cameron v. Miliband - who will win?

Another week of PMQs is over and, as usual, Cameron reduced the debate to personal snipes against the Labour leader. It is a regular tactic and he as applied it on many occasions as a mechanism to deflect attention away from himself and back onto the opposition.

It adds little or nothing to the debate, but it has been a useful tool to silence Miliband. It is therefore not surprising the Guardian reports that polls suggest only 25% of the population thought Ed Miliband would make a better prime minister. Not that Cameron should feel too smug, because only 38% voted for him.

The polls also indicate support within the Labour party isn’t overwhelming for EM. Indeed, if they are to be believed, 38% of Labour members – and 42% of people who backed the party are uncertain about Miliband as a possible prime minister.

By any stretch of the imagination these aren’t welcome statistics. Of course, we know psephologists and number crunchers love to play games and polls are seldom a true reflection of the national picture. What they indicate is that young Ed isn’t doing as well as he would have perhaps hoped.

Naturally, some opponents are already saying things would have been different if his brother had been elected. Perhaps, but would the soul of the Labour party have been safe in his hands? On reflection, I doubt it – what we would have seen is a continuation of New Labour, but with different labelling.

At PMQs today, Ed faired well and managed to score a few decent broadsides into Cameron’s hull. However, the good ship Conservativism is far from sunk and EM will need to dramatically up his game if he hopes to play with the big boys.

One rain doesn’t make a monsoon, but I hope that at least it heralds the start of the rainy season. At the moment I am left with the niggling doubt EM was given a good result on a platter. He will not be so fortunate in the weeks to come and will need to show a far hardier, earthy quality in his responses.

He might like to take a few lessons from Ed “rottweiler” Balls in this respect – a little thuggery in EM’s delivery would go a long way to push the party forward and reinforce his position as the leader of the loyal opposition. Add to that more spontaneity and you may find the electorate will warm to him, and find him less wooden.

One thing is for sure – Ed Miliband cannot continue the way he is going and that opposition to Tory cuts alone will be enough to win the next General Election. May 2010 demonstrated we have become far more media-centred when it comes to party leaders. Labour tried to paint Gordon Brown as a man with knowledge, wisdom and the courage to take Britain through this crisis. He may have had all those qualities, but the electorate were unconvinced and found Brown stiff, aloof and unapproachable, whilst Clegg was seen to be likable and trustworthy.

Time has shown the latter to be incorrect, but it still doesn’t give the Labour party the excuse to repeat the same mistakes with EM – he needs to be groomed (and quickly) to become far tougher, far more forceful and far more clearer in his delivery.

He has a long way to go.