Milliband's 'comeback' speech was an improvement but he's still losing the war

Ed's speech yesterday wasn't bad. He sounded and looked resilient: I guess he always knew what he was in for. He's an intelligent and savvy man and will have looked at the past. Blair was popular (in the early days) with people across the political spectrum. He looked and sounded the part. He was close enough to being Conservative to keep some on the right happy enough to cut him some slack but he was Labour leader and even if he didn't sound like the Labour leaders of the past, the public were desperate to get the Tories out. Kinnock had an altogether different experience and Milliband may have expected his treatment to be similar to that of 'the Welsh windbag'.

The speech yesterday achieved a few things. It gave him the chance to appear unrattled by the criticism; to talk about the economy, having forgotten to in his conference speech (although if I were him I'd have laughed this off and pointed out that Ed Balls is the shadow chancellor and spoke clearly about Labour's economic plans); to challenge the public's perception of what UKIP stands for; and to outline the differences between Labour and the Conservatives.

But any little boost this will have given him will quickly be wiped out. The dominant right-wing media will have his head back down the toilet bowl quicker than he can utter another cliché (zero-zero? I don't think that one's going to stick, Ed).

Unfortunately, it's more important these days to be able an expert in handling the media than it is to be eloquent and enlightened. What Labour needs is someone who will sound like they're promising everything people want to hear and be convincing enough to make them think there's substance behind it, and someone who will, once in power, actually do what the Labour party should be doing. I really like Alan Johnson but even if he was up for the job - which he's made clear he isn't - I don't think he could con the public the way Cameron or Blair (or even Farage, but that's more luck than expertise) have. Of course I don't want our politicians to con us: I hate it when they do; but that's what Labour needs to beat the nasty, all-powerful right wing media.

It's good to see Labour voters and members getting behind Ed on social media but I'm not convinced it'll make much difference against the might of the right-wing media machine. We'll see what May brings but it's not looking good.