Now obviously there is no transparent line of sight from
outside the prism of the Labour campaign in. Since he was accosted by that
gaggle of ‘Ed hungry women’ everything seems to have changed for Labour’s
leader.
The public perception of Ed Miliband early on in his
leadership of Labour and of this campaign has, to put it mildly, not been good.
The opening scene of Channel 4’s Ballot Monkey’s puts it best. “What if they
(the public) ask about Ed.” “Just ignore it and move on.” Says the campaign
team leader. I am not sure that this joke would be written now, the public’s
perception of Geeky, ‘I’m gonna drop the ball’ Ed, has changed.
His net personal ratings have gone skyward since those hen
party ‘high fives.’ They leaped from -39 to -18 helped by the so called ‘milifandom’
craze which has seen lunatics from across the land tweet their ‘blind date’
style tag lines in to the ethers in support of a new idea of Ed Miliband. And
now over to ‘our graham.’ This new Idea of course is that Ed is not just your
average politician but an observant one who really cares about the electorate,
no really and Ed’s playdate with Russell Brand could not have been a bigger
opportunity for this kind of exposition.
I can only describe it as an intellectual ‘Goliath’ toying
with a much liked ‘David,’ if David were a single faceted ‘meme’, bearing the
caption, “multinational corporate greed is keeping us down man.” Brand on his
show the ‘Trews’ (because it’s ‘true news’ don’t you know) had warmed to the
leader to such an extent that he near enough endorsed Labour’s campaign,
agreeing that another Tory government would be bad for Britain. “It says a lot
about Ed Miliband that he understands a lot about the way the media works now,
the way that the country feels. That he was prepared to come around here.” Other
than this quote having something of the messiah complex about it, it is very
powerful when considering the viewership of ‘the Trews’ and Brand’s popularity.
An endorsement from him, and this is as good as one, may go some way.
However, the real win for Labour to be borne out of Ed Miliband’s
new found willingness to get out there, be himself and debate whomever is
around (as ‘Call me Dave’ won’t play nice) was the Conservative response to
learning of the interviews inception. “Not Prime Ministerial,” they said. I am
not sure the electorate would agree. Any willingness to engage in their
concerns, and as much as it pains me to say it, Brand does represent a
subsection of society shown by his horde of followers. the fact that Ed did
appear on a silly You Tube channel with the view to engage will chime louder I
suspect than any pompous assertions that one should not fraternise with the
electorate.
So will Ed continue to unbuckle his belt, will he ‘high five’
David Dimbleby during the final Question Time Debate. I hope not, for
pompousness’ sake.