The central claim of Ed Miliband's leadership campaign has been the slogan: "Ed speaks human." We are invited to believe that the younger Miliband is a cross between Barack Obama and Diana, Princess of Wales: a gelatinous blob of empathy ready to overpower both party and nation with the sheer power of his charisma and all-round loveliness.
Of course, the slogan is missing two words that are never said out loud because they do not need to be. Only the most politically illiterate or tin-eared would fail to spot what is really being said: "Ed speaks human – unlike David." Every time the younger Miliband speaks of "my sense of empathy and my ability to reach out and understand people’s lives", he is blowing the metrosexual equivalent of a dog whistle. What Ed really means – and the signal he sends with ever greater clarity to the Labour Party selectorate – is that his elder brother is a gurning, banana-wielding technocrat who has no feel whatsoever for the lives of ordinary people and no talent whatsoever for communication.
