Ed Miliband and authenticity

Watching Ed Miliband’s brutal embarrassment on breakfast TV is a painful business. Listening to his later Radio Wiltshire outing is toe-curling.

Alas for Ed Miliband, the champion of the cost of living struggle hadn’t mugged up on the cost of his weekly shopping bill. He may not even do a regular weekly shop. He might stack the freezer and shop every fortnight. Someone else might take charge of that bit of the household. But he took a stab at a number and it was pitifully off-target. He later tried to explain his “£70 to £80” estimate saying that was just what he spent on fruit and vegetables. That would require some pretty up-market, exotic, imported fruit.

Maybe destabilised by those encounters, things got worse on Radio Wiltshire when the Labour leader was asked about the Labour group leader on Swindon Council. “Jim Grant, do you think he’s doing a good job?” He took a stab again and it was off-target. He talked about the Labour councillor being the council leader when Swindon is actually a rather prominent Tory council that Labour is targeting.

All micro stuff and not the business of big politics. But the qualities of party leaders do impact on many voters’ preferences. One of the most precious assets for a party leader is “authenticity.” Voters smell it. Ed Miliband’s friends would say he’s got it in buckets. But today he looked dangerously inauthentic.

Authenticity is something you sometimes have to fake. David Cameron learnt a while ago how you can be ambushed on cost of living questions. He once came up, note perfect, with the right price for a pint of milk when asked. But it’s hard to imagine with a household the size of his that he’d ever bought a tiny wee pint of milk. He’d been carefully briefed there was a trend of questioning about and he needed to mug up.

Follow @GaryGibbonBlog on Twitter