5 things we learned from Miliband’s Evan Davis interview

Ed Miliband was the third leader to face an Evan Davis grilling tonight. Davis isn’t not as pugnacious as Jeremy Paxman, nor as dogged as Andrew Neill (who I’d like to see interview all of the party leaders), but he’s smart, well prepared and hammers home at points of potential weakness. He’s an incredibly tough interviewer – you’d have to be to do the Today Programme and Newsnight – and that was certainly the case for Miliband tonight, at least in the early stages.

But it was to no avail.

The Tories will try to make this a newsworthy interview (as Labour did with Cameron’s) but although it was interesting for Britain’s Kremlinologists, there wasn’t anything game-changing revealed tonight. And with Miliband having a better campaign than most expected, that’ll feel like a significant hurdle crossed. Here’s what we learned from tonight’s encounter:

1. Miliband’s line on the SNP remains consistent – Miliband’s line on the SNP could not be any clearer. Despite his determination not to “measure the curtains” (a phrase he loves, and which he used in my recent interview with him) he’s already set out as clearly as possible what Labour’s position would be. If Miliband is Prime Minister and able to put forward a Queens Speech, it’s up to other parties – including the SNP – how they vote on it. The same goes for the budget. As for every other bit of legislation, it seems clear a Labour government would operate on a vote by vote basis – as pretty every minority government in the world does. That’s tricky, and involves more work for less legislation, but it’s eminently achievable, at least in the short term. And – from Labour’s point of view – it may actually mean fewer compromises than a formal coalition would. Ask the Tory backbenchers if they think they could’ve got more done without the Lib Dems…

2. Ed Balls is almost certain to be Miliband’s Chancellor – Again, Miliband doesn’t want to “measure the curtains”, but his praise for Balls – both for his work as Shadow Chancellor and his capability to do the job (which Miliband has, lest we forget, seen first hand) means it’s incredibly unlikely that anyone else would be moving in next door to Miliband is the Labour leader takes up residence in Downing Street in the coming weeks. The Labour leader also thinks that Balls has done a good job in the election campaign – not for nothing has the Shadow Chancellor been launching many of Labour’s punchy election posters.

3. Evan Davis is better defending the Tory record than the Tories are – The early stage of the interview – when Evan Davis talked up the Tory record in government compared to some of Labour’s warnings about them – was the hardest section for Miliband. He did well not to get sucked into simplistic yes/no answers on subjects as complex as crime and policing, but it did make me think how fortunate it is that Davis is better at making the Tory case than the Tories are. (Incidentally – although it is seldom mentioned these days as Davis is a studiously neutral interviewer – he once wrote a book advocating significant privatisation of public services).

4. Labour won’t get sucked into arbitrary deficit timetables – One tactic that the Tories are particularly keen to employ is the arbitrary timetable tactic. That’s where a complex economic goal is given an entirely arbitrary political timescale. Perhaps the prime example of this is the Tories claim that they would eliminate the deficit by 2015. You’ll have noticed that it’s 2015, and the deficit still remains. They just moved the dates. Because that’s what happens when the arbitrary timetable tactic collides with economic reality. Miliband knows that although the Tories have been given an easy ride over failing their deficit targets, Labour won’t be cut the same slack. So he’s opted out of the whole game entirely. The day to day budget will be in surplus ASAP in the next Parliament. There won’t be a date plucked out of thin air. That’s his answer and he’s sticking to it.

5. Sassy Miliband lives on (he’s still feeling confident and calm) – Ed Miliband’s “sassy” reactions to Nigel Farage during the TV debate last week got quite a lot of attention online. It could be that he’s studiously practised his reactions to hostile questions and ridiculous political grandstanding – or, far more likely, the Labour leader could be feeling confident and calm. Certainly his reaction to Farage last week and Davis tonight – two radically different forms of hectoring – produced the same response. A remarkably calm response. A confidence that he can find the right answer. A wry smile. This seems quite different to the awkward Miliband of Tory attacks, which – to be fair – had some small justification. The awkwardness has all but gone now. Staying that way in the weeks to come – especially in the Today interview and the Question Time special – should be paramount.