With great reluctance, I took some Sturgeron anti-vomiting tablets and turned to David Miliband’s much-vaunted article.

I really am stunned. If this is the best hope for New Labour, they have lost all touch with reality. Nobody will recognise the parliamentary answer style list of the government’s great achievements as having any relationship to actual life, on the day that British Gas announced a 35% price rise. The careful soundbites bear no relationship to the way normal people talk about anything. The general vacuity and failure to outline a single policy proposal make Barack Obama look like a man obsessed with practical detail. The continuing failure to admit the Iraq War was wrong (Miliband only parrots the New Labour mantra that we should have prepared better for the results) is an abomination of shiftiness.

I wonder what Keir Hardie would make of this brash, empty, embodiment of undeserving ambition? I wonder if Miliband has ever spoken to a working man other than to give him curt instructions on installing the Aga? If anyone thinks this empty vessel will save New Labour from the worst political defeat for a century, I am chuckling to see them try.