Bernard Ingham: The electoral maths may look good for Miliband but his sums still don’t add up

This is not necessarily disastrous. Clement Attlee was a charisma-free zone but the second best peacetime Prime Minister of the 20th Century. He had the advantage, however, of a very clear programme.

Still, whatever else, do not write off Miliband. He could easily – if ridicule ever makes things easy – become the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, always assuming the Scots don’t up their kilts and flee the union next year.

The polls may have narrowed to recently put Labour and Tories neck and neck with 18 months to go, but that is the best the Tories have seen for years. Miliband has more going for him than that: not least a built-in advantage in the electoral system worth perhaps six points on any poll – an advantage preserved by the Lib Dems out of pique.

The Tories also fear votes haemorrhaging to the wayward Ukip, while Labour looks likely to benefit from defectors from the Liberal Democrats. It is true that Lib Dem MPs are pretty good at entrenching themselves once elected but they no longer have freedom from responsibility. They now have to answer for their role in government.

On that basis, it would be reckless to give Miliband the thumbs-down at this stage. The arithmetic of the election is still with him, even if other considerations give him a mountain to climb to reach No 10.

His first problem is the company he has kept – and still keeps. Damian McBride, Gordon Brown’s incomparably vicious spin doctor, has done Miliband no favours with his autobiography detailing his assorted political assassinations and skulduggery. It strains credibility to breaking point to claim that neither Miliband nor Ed Balls knew much about what was going on.

They were not singing in a choir. They were on the same side as McBride in the relentless war of Prime Minister Blair’s succession and subsequently the elimination of all competition for Brown.

Miliband’s close association with Brown, the worst, most paranoic and expensive PM this country has known, is not an asset. Nor is having Balls as his Shadow Chancellor. The sooner he replaces him with Alistair Darling the sounder his party will look with the nation’s money. Darling is more likely to provide the necessary “iron discipline” than Balls ever could be.

This is Miliband’s most serious problem if the economic recovery is sustained. Labour has spent three years calling for Plan B. Now that Plan A seems to be working, they argue that many are not sharing in the spoils. But who, more than anybody else, is held responsible in the polls for a lower standard of living? Why, Labour its very self.

If Miliband had any sense – and the unions did not hold him in a vice – he would never have told us he was “bringing back socialism”. Socialism, however defined, is expensive. Already the Tories have put a £27.5bn price on Labour’s unfunded pledges.

Nor are the public fools. They recognise the need for austerity to get the country back on an even keel. They know that the shortest route to a higher standard of living is a thriving economy with balanced books.

But it is not only cash that handicaps Miliband in his bid for No 10. It is the perception that he is soft on three crucial issues – an over-generous welfare system, immigration and our relationship with Europe.

All this, along with the feeling that he is a prisoner of the trade union movement with its determination to get its hands on the public purse, is the north face of the Eiger standing between him and his Prime Ministerial goal.

Yesterday’s speech did not produce policies that would reinforce his electoral arithmetic.

It will serve him right if he lands himself with Nick Clegg as a coalition partner. The overgrown schoolboy needs to mature fast if he is to avoid government with Dr No, as Clegg is called, after listing 16 Tory policies the Lib Dems have blocked since 2010.

God save us from leaders whose political paralysis promotes coalition where a partner justifies itself not by what it achieves but by what it thwarts.