TEMPLATE ANALYSIS

Labour had a good week with their leader emerging, to the relief of many inside and outside party, as a contender.

He had a bounce in the polls, a fact not replicated by the Tory Party at their conference last week. George Osborne’s speech which was seen by some as a play for future Party leadership got a tepid response. Sometimes silence can be interpreted as a sign of respect. It did not feel like that to the outside observer. And as the Prime Minister speech promises of opportunity in this land of plenty .. well the less said about that the better.

Most people who support the Conservatives knew this was going a tough conference for a party that has taken difficult decisions and at times appeared to favour its core supporters, rather than the country at large.

So the Mail’s salvo on the eve of the Tory Conference on ‘Red Ed’ and his father’s Marxist views, which included the proposition that he hated Britain, was an attempt to bring down the up and coming Labour leader a peg or two.

As events have transpired. the Mail attack has failed.

And an apology from Lord Rothermere, the owner of the Mail group, the Mail on Sunday for sending a reporter to a private family memorial, has made the much respected and feared newspaper of middle England, look silly.

Ed Miliband has accused the Mail of Anti-Semitism and pointed to the practices within the newspaper that would allow an intrusion into private grief, something that has been experienced by a number of families less high-profile than his.

Ed Miliband has emerged stronger from this very personal attack.

But if he is truly serious about questioning newspaper practice than he has to look at how the whole industry has managed to demonize a whole community since 9/11 in much the same way that the Jews were in the thirties.

And how of course that has managed to seep in the broadcasting industry and how it covers events involving Muslims here and in Muslim lands.