Reasons To Talk About Ed Miliband - Sky News

Labour are putting Ed Miliband even more front and centre at this year's conference than usual.

There are a number of reasons why this makes sense.

1. Mr Miliband's leadership is completely secure. This is the man Labour will present to the electorate in 2015 barring something extraordinary happening.

If they believe that the main problem with Mr Miliband is that people do not know him well enough, they must act to remedy that.

2. People already know the bad stuff about Mr Miliband. He pleads guilty as charged to geekiness; and everyone has their own opinion on his "fratricide", though this is receding into distant memory now.

One has to presume that other things one might learn about the Labour leader are on the positive side of the ledger. No-one, not even his opponents, seem to believe in Mr Miliband's "dark side".

3. Compared with earlier hyperactivity, the Tories and Lib Dems are in a temporary holding pattern - big policy decisions have to wait until the autumn statement is out of the way and the spending review is underway.

In a midterm lull, Mr Miliband might have space to make a case that would otherwise be drowned out by the governing parties.

4. If Labour does not talk about Mr Miliband, they might have to about... er... policy. This is not invariably a great idea. Already they have got themselves in a muddle over health, and Harriet Harman held her hands up to "timing" difficulties over the party's economic positioning.

Defending their leader against the charge of being un-prime ministerial is an easier job than explaining the finer points of policies that have not been fully worked through yet.