Ed Miliband

Why isn’t Labour a shoo-in for May’s general election? The Conservative-LibDem coalition has driven through the biggest onslaught on public services, the welfare state and workers’ wages in decades, yet Labour has been unable to develop anything close to a convincing lead over the Tories, and in some polls even falls behind them. As a result, the outcome of the general election remains very unpredictable.

Last month’s Labour Party conference was a moribund affair, judging by all reports. “Despair” is a word that crops up repeatedly. “Ennui” has also been noted.

Labour MPs should have been upbeat after securing a No vote in the Scottish referendum. After all, Gordon Brown became the toast of the Union when he emerged from his monk-like retreat to head up the “great pledge” for DevoMax.

But the morning after the vote left Labour looking like the biggest loser.

A Labour party special conference in March will review how unions fund the party and, by extension, the link between the two. At least, that is what Labour leader Ed Miliband pledged last July to the delight of New Labour acolytes and Blairite former ministers.

Miliband announced the review in the wake of allegations of malpractice by members of Unite in the selection of a parliamentary candidate in Falkirk. It was a decision Miliband appeared to be bounced into at the time. But there seemed little ambiguity when the Labour leader declared himself "incredibly angry".

Something surprising happened in September. Ed Miliband managed to dominate the party conference season and even make mainstream politics spark to life for once.

Miliband's decision to respond to the Tories' boast the economic "recovery" vindicates their austerity measures by focusing on what he rightly called the "cost of living crisis" gave some expression to the mood among millions of workers across Britain.

"Even in these hard times, is it too much to expect an opposition to oppose now and again?" (Sunday Herald, 16 June).

For historians of the British Labour Party, June 2013 is likely to be remembered as a key milestone in Party's political and ideological evolution.

The Labour List website ran a headline in early October declaring, "There's a class war being waged in Britain - but not by Labour."

This was meant to be a compliment, not a criticism, of Ed Miliband's attack on the Tories as the real enemies of "One Nation" Britain. Yet, of course, it's an observation that is close to the mark.

At the beginning it also seemed as if it would be profoundly dull, with four men - of roughly the same age, background and politics - in the running alongside a token "left" candidate in the form of Diane Abbott (token in the sense that she was only there because David Miliband instructed supporters to put her on the ticket).