David Miliband has been able to focus on various activities, some quite financially lucrative, while not being on the front-bench of the Shadow Cabinet. Ed Miliband, like George Osborne (in theory), has only job despite various titles.

Interestingly, this question was rightly asked by @suzanne_moore, regular columnist for the Observer and the Mail on Sunday, this morning.

I am not going to do the variant of the ‘should politicians have holidays?’ article, which always makes for interesting reading. The question that Suzanne poses is a profound one, anyway. Suzanne is presumably about to start her tour of the Party conferences, as required by her job. I will be as usual going on holiday to the Fringe events at the Labour conference, this time in Manchester. I expect Ed Miliband to be there to meet members of the Party, and of course to give his conference speech.

I miss seeing Ed Miliband on the TV, especially since the news coverage has been super-saturated with the Cameron Shuffle. This Shuffle has just reminded me how much I hate the ‘B team’ that constitutes this Government. ‘Fleet Street Fox’ wrote the perfect article yesterday summarising the banality of the goings-on yesterday . Amongst the highlights is of course a man who can’t be trusted in the hearts of many to make a decision without relentless corporate bias, but who is always willing to ensure that his actions are seen as ‘above board’, and who may, in fact, be supremely confident about dismantling the NHS, which he has strongly criticised before. Judging from what is going on in the social media, this is a Coalition that is generally perceived to be incompetent. The reasons range from the lack of ability of Nick Clegg to do anything important, the managed decline of the Liberal Democrats, or the renewal of the ATOS contract where 40% of work capability assessments are reverse on appeal. The act of having a reshuffle is in itself bad PR for David Cameron.

Ed Miliband does not need to state ‘the bleeding obvious’ by saying that this reshuffle is a meaningless rearrangement of deck chairs on the Titanic. What is more worrying is how he seeks to establish the importance of the Welfare State for the sick and disabled in general, and how he is going to address the imminent privatisation of the NHS. What is more worrying, however, is how the general public generally mistrust both parties equally in running the economy. There is no obvious link between  the decline in GDP and an unwillingness for any particular voter to vote Tory. More worryingly, whilst the narrative by Ed Balls has been of ‘cutting too fast too deep’, there is a suggestion, albeit in the face of crippled consumer trade and poor trade abroad, that the GDP might pick up next year. Of course, we’ve been there before.

Ed Miliband himself may need a ‘Plan B’. If the economy does indeed pick up, the narrative of Ed Balls will suddenly become weak. David Cameron will be able to emphasise that he has successfully made ‘tough decisions’ on behalf of the country, perhaps citing the booing of George Osborne as a mere symbol of that. The problem in ATOS can be outsourced to ATOS, and the underclaimants (some of whom may be underemployed) in the underprovision of law centre will never hit the general media as before. Enough time, arguably, has been lost with the leadership election, now long gone, but Miliband needs to establish a message on the value of the Unions, the demonisation of the disabled, the privatisation of the NHS, amongst other issues, while perhaps portraying the Coalition is overprivileged and out-of-touch. However, it is still very precarious for Ed Miliband, and this particular Miliband does need a Plan B.