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The Generation Game - it's tribal

Peter Henley|22:35 UK time, Friday, 1 October 2010

Ed Miliband

I counted 34 mentions of Labour's "new generation" in Ed Miliband's speech today.


Take a look at the wordcount here.

The old hands are leaving the shadow cabinet... a quarter of the MPs are newly elected, they're changing the guard. There's been a complete revamp of the music played in the hall. Just as David Cameron brought in The Killers' track Mr Brightside and transformed the mood, now Ed chose the Kings of Leon's Use Somebody as he left the stage.

He delivered his speech in front of a gaggle of teenagers... a backdrop of shy young girls and boys who would struggle to do anything useful with a razor.

I suppose he gained gravitas by comparison but the question left in my mind is how much of this is about the next election and how much just planting seeds for the future.

Danger in success

The Southampton Shadow Cabinet Minister John Denham is clear that there's a danger for Labour in too much early success. In his opinion a rise in the opinion polls, success in local elections, spells trouble ahead.

"What we've got to know is that we won't come back just because the coalition becomes unpopular. We're going to have a lead in opinion polls soon, but it's only when people start to say we want you back, we think you've changed, you understand what it was that led us not to vote for you, that we will get back."

Denham backed Ed Miliband and says he understands the South in the same way that Tony Blair did.

And in a speech to Southern region supporters Miliband identified three areas where Labour needed a new agenda to win back Southern voters.

The first two were straightforward. He saw the cost of housing and problems of transport as important areas.

Critical point

His last point may be the critical one, though. He argued that Labour would always struggle against a Tory tradition, in the same way that Labour enjoys the benefits of a tradition of voting in the North.

In his speech today the new Labour leader offered a more consensual politics - agreeing with Ken Clark on sentencing, with Theresa May on repealing terror laws.

He also promised to end tribalism within his party, but it must also be his hope that a new generation of voters will be less tribal, and in the South of England, more ready to give his party a chance.

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