Ed’s Fabian speech – and the media reaction

And how the speech was reported in the press:

Ed Miliband claims notion of the ‘big society’ for Labour – Guardian

Ed Miliband tore into Labour’s style of government under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown today as he promised to rebuild a grassroots movement that would go beyond “the bureaucratic state” and look to local people for answers.

Seeking to sustain momentum after the party’s success in last week’s Oldham East and Saddleworth byelection, the Labour leader insisted the party would only move forward if it understood how and why it “lost touch with people’s daily struggle” during 13 years in power.

Miliband told the Fabian Society that he was proud of much that Labour did in office, but that its failure to regulate the markets and, latterly, its belief that the state knew best, left it remote from the people it existed to serve.

Ed Miliband U-turn as he says: ‘We were wrong about spending cuts’ – Daily Mail

Ed Miliband effectively disowned former Prime Minister Gordon Brown yesterday by admitting that his Government had been wrong about spending cuts. In a major U-turn and a snub to his former patron, the Labour leader confessed: ‘We were too slow to acknowledge . . . that there would eventually have to be cuts.’

It marks a significant break with Mr Brown’s General Election strategy of contrasting Labour’s ‘investment’ plans with ‘savage’ Tory measures to lower the deficit, which party aides now believe was a big vote-loser.

Miliband issues appeal to Lib Dems – Press Association

Ed Miliband has appealed to disaffected Liberal Democrats to work with Labour against the cuts agenda being implemented by the coalition Government.

The Labour leader said Nick Clegg’s decision to take his party into coalition with the Conservatives was a “tragic mistake”, and declared himself ready to co-operate with Liberal Democrats “in Parliament and outside it” to oppose the direction in which the Government is taking Britain.