Sketch: Ed Miliband's problem with promises Last Wednesday, Mr Miliband talked to supporters in another part of the West Midlands, the town of Redditch. That morning, he seemed relatively cheerful. From time to time he smiled and joked. Ah, those innocent, far-off days, when the most important subject in politics was the price of sausage rolls. Then came the Great Galloway Disaster, when Labour's confidence crumbled like so much pastry. Plainly, a new approach was needed. So far, that new approach appears to consist mainly of frowning. Yesterday Mr Miliband, and the other Labour figures present - Harriet Harman, Yvette Cooper, Hilary Benn - spoke earnestly, even grimly. They rattled off their anti-Tory slogans ("out of touch," "wrong priorities") with the rapid efficiency of supermarket pricing guns. A reporter helpfully reminded them about the result in Bradford West. Why had they lost a safe seat, and by such a big margin? Mr Miliband seemed to think it was Gordon Brown's fault. Labour lost very badly two years ago. We have a long way to come back. I think we're making progress. I take back my first paragraph. Mr Miliband is capable of mindless optimism after all. He talked up Labour councils around the country, which were "making a difference" to the less well-off. "In Newcastle," he said, "they've kept open the libraries." In Labour-run Brent, he didn't add, they're closing them. On some of the bigger subjects he was curiously vague. Take tax. "In a Labour Budget," he said, "we wouldn't be cutting the 50p tax rate for millionaires." Maybe not. But that isn't the same as pledging to reinstate it. Would he? He didn't say. He took a similar line on tuition fees. Here's what I would do if we were in government now... But people don't want to know what he'd do if he were in government now, because he isn't in government now. They want to know what he'll do if he wins the next election. Maybe that sort of thing comes under the dread heading of "big promises," which you must never make because you find them impossible to live up to. Much safer just to tell people what you'd be doing in an alternate universe in which Labour won the 2010 election. Except, of course, if Labour had won the 2010 election, Mr Miliband wouldn't be leader, which makes his gestures about tax and tuition fees even emptier. His closing words summed up the mood. "Please stay engaged in our politics," he said. It wasn't exactly "Yes, we can!" It was more "Hmm. We might.