What’s a reasonable expectation for Miliband’s performance tonight?

The expectations for Ed Miliband’s performance last week were – unfairly – very low. After years of brutal (and intensifying) attack from both the Tories and a large chunk of the media, Miliband would have exceeded expectations if he had managed to last 18 minutes with Paxman and still remembered his own name.

Evidently he did far better than that – much, much better. And that obviously raises the stakes for tonight’s second (real/actual) TV debate. That’s tricky for Miliband, because despite the work that he’s put in over recent weeks (and in his Manchester “debate camp” in recent days) tonight – when he finally gets to be on the same stage as Cameron – is a difficult proposition for the Labour leader. Here’s why:

Cameron will perform better this week – The PM could scarcely have started worse than he did last week. Paxman put him on the spot immediately, and Cameron didn’t cope well. This time he’ll be able to get out of the traps and establish his position far more easily than last week. I also suspect Cameron believed some of the Tory hype about Ed Miliband (after all, he had duffed him up in the Commons a day before) – he won’t make that mistake again. It’s easy to surprise the British people (and the Tories) with a good performance once – it’s far harder to repeat the trick, especially when there are so many opponents that Miliband must tackle at once…

Labour vs the small parties – David Cameron’s primary concerns tonight will be avoiding a Miliband win or a shellacking from Nigel Farage. if he avoids both of those he can count it as a success. For Miliband the challenge is steeper. he’ll want to best Cameron (or at least match him) to prove he’s Prime Ministerial, but he’ll also have to stand next to Nigel Farage and take on the SNP, Plaid and the Greens – all of whom are aiming to take votes from Labour. Miliband and Labour are up against all of the smaller parties in a race to be the alternative to Cameron. That means attacks could come from all different directions at once. And the SNP/Plaid/Greens troika could easily and happily spend two hours bashing Labour rather than the Tories – because it’s Labour votes they’re after.

Chaos (of his own creation) – the other advantage Cameron has (as well as being likely to face fewer attacks than Miliband) is that this debate – which he designed – is going to appear chaotic. Seven podiums, seven leaders and seven parties. It’s a very unusual proposition for the British public. We can fully expect Cameron to dismiss everyone else on the stage as an exemplar of the chaotic future of British politics unless he is back in Downing Street. And that’s a potentially compelling line of attack – as unfair as that is, when the seven way debate was his idea.

The last word – Does the order in which people speak at debates like these make a big difference? If so, Cameron will be far happier than the Labour leader – because he gets the final word of the night. And whilst Miliband may the central podium position, Cameron is on the far right from the viewers point of view – which means he can address all of the other speakers with a single gesture. Miliband is the last leader who gets to deliver an opening statement too – which means he’ll need to think on his feet if he’s to get off to a good start.

Miliband is still new – What Miliband has in his favour is that for a large proportion of the public he is still considered either new or unsuited to the top job. Only a couple of million people watched last week’s debate, and despite taking place just before a long weekend, the audience on ITV will be far higher – so Miliband can reach far more people tonight who don’t know much about him or still have unfairly low expectations of him. Because despite those (now less vociferous) Tory claims to the contrary, Miliband showed last week that he can perform on the big stage. There’s no reason why he can’t do so again tonight.

So what’s a reasonable expectation from Miliband tonight? If he performs as well as he did last week – and the smaller parties don’t focus all their fire on the Labour leader – then he can do well. But Cameron has many advantages going into tonight’s debate. LabourList readers believe that Sturgeon and to a lesser extent Farage are the ones to watch tonight.

But the one leader who I’m most worried about tonight is Cameron…