EdM might not be polling well at the moment but the idea that David M would have done better is fanciful rubbish.
Quite simply David M showed he was crap at politics
I was very taken by this comment from Edmund in Tokyo on the previous thread on why David Miliband would not have been the winner that his protagonists say he would:-
1) David Miliband wouldn’t have been able to bury the Iraq episode like Ed has. It would have been a serious ongoing problem, even worse as Iraq falls apart, and crippled his ability to win over the 2010 LibDems who have been solid for Ed.
2) David Miliband is utterly shit at politics. His big idea was the individual carbon ration card. He managed to destabilize Gordon Brown’s government by always looking like he was going to challenge him without ever actually doing it. And he wasn’t good enough to win a Labour leadership election… against Ed Miliband”
This is what PB’s Labour columnist Henry G Manson wrote here after David M announced that he was quitting UK politics
“David had the capacity to win but it would have meant moving on from New Labour, something he chose not to. It would have meant meeting the unions half way, something he showed disdain for. When once asked about the future of trade unions at a Labour dinner he apparently quipped “do they have one?â€
It’s all well and good wisecracking at the expense of unions after you’ve been elected leader, but the mentality to do so beforehand when a third of the electoral college is up for grabs was reckless. There are dozens of similar stories.“
That quip about the trade unions is very telling and the polling shows clearly that EdM is popular with the voters LAB has to retain – the 2010 LDs.