Hello and welcome to rock and roll politics, the podcast with me, Steve Richards.

Thank you so much for tuning in.

We've got a lot to cram in in our time together. I'm taking a break in

inverted commas from the war and focusing on another theme, which is why the right is obsessed

with Ed Miliband. And by the right, I don't just mean the right in terms of the Tory party and beyond, but also

the right of the Labour Party. It is a very interesting, the obsession. And what I'm going to do,

if it's okay with you, is take one example of the obsession, which is an article that Michael Gove,

the editor of the spectator, has written for this week's magazine.

One of the joys of podcasts is you can sort of forensically examine a case.

I remember doing the same with an article Kier Stama wrote again in inverted commas because he didn't, I'm sure, write a word of it,

part of his detached leadership style in opposition. He wrote a piece for the observer.

And it was just full of banalities and echoes, but imitations never work of the sort of Blair's arguments in the sort of

2002, 2003, 2004 period about the centre ground that the era of tax and spend is over.

What does that mean?

Look at them at the moment,

having had to put up taxes left, right and center,

and struggling to find the money for police, prisons,

social care, etc.

I mean, it was all meaningless.

And that forensic examination, it was, listen back, listen back, because it provided a clue, I think,

as to why they were bound to struggle in government. They were already going to win by then,

although it was part of the tragedy, really, of the build-up to that 24 election. Some of them feared they might not.

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