According to James Kirkup of the Daily Telegraph, Ed Miliband’s performance at last week’s Prime Minister’s Questions was more that of a shadow Prime Minister than of a Leader of the Opposition, and not in a good way: according to Kirkup, Miliband’s attempt to sound sombre and responsible merely resulted in a ‘distinctly unempowered attack’ on the PM and the Government.
For Kirkup, Miliband’s attempt to emulate the statesmanlike gravitas befitting of a PM was a mistake: the Leader of the Opposition can – insulated from the responsibility of, y’know, having to make actual decisions – afford to be bolder and more fiery. More... oppositional, perhaps?
The general consensus in the media is that Miliband didn’t do much better in today’s PMQs – mainly bleating on about the Government’s ‘incompetence’. Ed’s attempt to highlight Foreign Secretary William Hague’s less than dazzling recent performance was fended off by Prime Minister David Cameron with a personal attack on the Miliband brothers, stinging Ed with the comment: ‘there is only one person around here I can remember knifing a Foreign Secretary and I’m looking at him’.
It’s a funny ol’ business, being Leader of the Opposition. Perhaps Ed Miliband – and his fellow Labourites for that matter – would benefit from a little read of How to be in Opposition: Life in the Political Shadows, edited by Nigel Fletcher – a handy compilation of essays on how to survive the challenges and limitations of sitting on the Speaker’s left hand side. The book is available here, priced £14.99