The Miliband magic  

What political leader in Opposition has ever stopped in its tracks what looked like irresistible momentum towards a disaster?   No, I can’t think of one either.   Certainly not Cameron – can you remember any of the positions he took during the 5 years before the 2010 election, apart from slyly posing beside a dog-sleigh in the Arctic?   Nor Blair, except his flying off to Hayman Island off Australia to pay sycophantic homage to Murdoch’s News International just before the 1997 election.   Not even Thatcher who spent 4 undistinguished years as Tory Opposition Leader 1975-9 and failed to leave any mark whatever on the tumultuous struggles of the late 1970s.   Yet Ed Miliband has now twice outmanoeuvred some of the most powerful forces in the land and forced the government on to a humiliating defensive.   By any standards, given the lack of executive...