Ed Miliband’s watered-down offer of a new deal in his conference speech, the “new bargain” for Britain, took about 12 hours to unravel. The question now, is how long it will take for the same thing to happen to his leadership.
This morning Miliband took to the airwaves after his latest battering from the press, promising instead a “new era” - away from Labour’s Blair-Brown years, a new epoch for the economy where the markets no longer rule the roost.
"It's a new era. David Cameron is the last gasp of the old era. For Labour, spending will not be the way we introduce social justice in the next decade. Unless we reform our economy, we are not going to get to the change we want to see”, he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme
But whatever the era, the Labour party is a creature of habit. Unfortunately for Ed, that habit is factionalism and internal division.
At an IPPR fringe meeting on Wednesday, shadow cabinet minister Douglas Alexander said it was time for the party to buck its own history. “Let’s be honest, the history of the Labour party when we’re tipped into opposition is we form a circular firing squad and about 10 years later we decide to get our act together”.
But an hour after the Labour leader’s speech, delegates were forming their own firing squad. While MPs remained firmly on-message for the cameras and fringes, lascivious special advisers, councillors and delegates were happy to discuss the problem.
It was not just Miliband’s lack of charisma - which special advisers are euphemistically referring to as his “presentational issues” - it was the lack of policies.
Some said the crowd booing Tony Blair when the former PM was mentioned in Miliband's speech marked the moment the party lost its hold on the centre ground. Others lamented the content, and the delivery. "Dreadful," said one delegate from Liverpool, when asked about the parts of the speech that did get broadcast. "55 Minutes of nothing, except for some vague idea of a bargain. It doesn't mean anything. "
Miliband’s advisors freely admit they don’t want him to peak too soon, with a general election more than three years away. But the sense of frustration among Labour councillors, who are tasked with explaining the party’s position on free schools, or on bin collections to the public is palpable. Lord Glasman, Ed’s ‘Blue Labour’ policy guru answered their concerns at a fringe meeting by telling them to keep “holding the line”.
Glasman’s unique way of explaining Miliband’s unpopularity? “As my first girlfriend said to me several times, 'don't come too early'."
For his team it was not a make-or-break speech. They are building Miliband up as a leader in time for 2015. But the press are revolting. Leading lobby hacks huddled together after Ed’s speech in the press room, deciding the line, briefing one another. With no concrete policies announced, all that remains to write about the Labour party is gossip and gaffes.
While Labour members may not be happy with Ed, the parliamentary Labour party remain firmly united behind their leader, at least in public. They cannot afford not to be, after 20 years of Blair-Brown division.
For them the speech was “powerful”, or “personal” or their leader marking out the “new generation”. Off the record, of course, they say more - with one senior Labour source accusing Ed's team of "group think": "If they say the speech is good again and again, that does not make it true... It's a good time to be depressed about the Labour party."
In the first Labour conference for nearly two decades not dominated by the Blair-Brown psychodrama, the party has an entirely new problem. And that problem’s name is Ed.