Miliband speech: What the papers said
"Labour began this week as a party with some hope of winning a general election and a leader with little chance of convincing the public that he was fit to be PM. In focusing on personality, Mr Miliband took the gamble of his life. Few expected him to succeed, and he has proved them wrong. Mr Miliband is not yet vaguely comparable to Disraeli, and he may never be. Even so, he has shown a glimmer of the qualities required in every towering leader. If Ed Miliband can change himself so totally, perhaps he really can change Britain."
Steve Richards in the Independent
"Already much attention has been given to the deft delivery, speaking without notes for more than an hour and managing a Blair-like tonal variety as he did so. The style was important, making it harder for his Tory and media opponents to portray him as a weird, detached geek. No geek can grip a hall with an informal style that managed to be humorously conversational while rising at times to an oratorical flourish. The fact that he spoke with such apparent ease cements his relationship with his party and gives him the chance to engage with the wider electorate, too."
"That was it: the day Ed Miliband wiped the smile off Conservative faces. With breathtaking bravura he held the hall rapt. No autocue, at ease, personal and passionate. Even the enemy press emerged speaking superlatives, though whether those feature in Tory prints is another matter. The nation may glimpse too little of this confident, intelligent speech, though by osmosis voters do absorb political turning points such as this. It was the day Miliband's private qualities at last turned into public strengths: not just brainy but funny, likable and an unashamed egalitarian to the core of his being. One Nation Labour is a stroke of genius, one short phrase finally burying the shifty uncertainty about how to escape the difficult legacies of both Blair and Brown.
"The geek done good in Manchester. Ed Miliband’s 'I’m the One' tour de passion was a Labour leader transformed. Miliband owned the hall and perhaps one day he really might own the country, too. He showed Ed-sceptics, including me, that he has what it takes to be prime minister. Over the years I’ve endured dozens of leaders’ speeches. Yesterday was unexpectedly impressive. He was fluent, confident and finger-jabbed home his points with verve."
Patrick O'Flynn in the Express
"Dig below the surface of almost any part of Mr Miliband’s very stylish speech shot through with idealism about turning Labour into the 'One Nation' party and the same question keeps nagging away: who is going to pay for all of this? He even provided an explicit answer – those with the 'broadest shoulders would bear the highest cost'. It would be nice to imagine that he simply meant fabulously wealthy millionaires. But there are not enough of them, alas. So he must mean the middle classes."
"Most important was the One Nation theme, the decision to aim dead at David Cameron, and to appeal directly to those who voted Conservative in 2010. This is surely sensible for Labour: trying to win the next election with the Labour core vote and some Lib Dem defectors is timid and almost certainly doomed. Mr Miliband appears to realise his only route to proper victory passes through Conservative-held seats, and takes him to a head-on, winner-takes-all fight with Mr Cameron. The attempt to seize Disraeli for Labour is almost breathtakingly cheeky, and one can only imagine what the old showman would have made of it.
"The Miliband operation set the bar high. Luckily for them, the Labour leader appears to have cleared it. He seemed much more confident than he has done on similar occasions in the past; much more in control of the mood in the room and much more assertive in delivering his message. He got a few good laughs in the right places. His theme – 'One Nation' – was a pretty audacious raid on Tory language and, as a fusion of traditional left appeals to solidarity and a patriotic idiom more commonly associated with the right, it clearly has potential as a platform to reach out to a wide section of the electorate."
Fraser Nelson in the Spectator
"His 'One Nation' appeal sat oddly beside class war strategy. But luckily for him, no one will have listened to the whole speech: just his best bits. And those best bits were very good. His delivery was excellent. He made up little jokes, the type that always work a lot better than scripted jokes. When he laughed, his normal hangdog expression vanished. His passage attacking Cameron for the NHS reorganisation was powerful and effective (‘The British people said: no’). Cameron had ordered Lansley not to overhaul the NHS precisely for this reason: it is going into history as a disaster, even though all Lansley did was write Labour reforms into law."
Sunny Hundal in Liberal Conspiracy
"Ed Miliband’s speech to the Labour party conference today far surpassed expectations – even the right wing press is convinced of that. By the end my main thought was: how the hell has this guy managed to memorise an hour-long speech (1hr 5 min) and deliver it with such detail and without missing a beat? Watching it in the conference hall was extraordinary."
