Sketch: Ed Miliband talks to the public... and swiftly regrets it Today Ed Miliband went on Radio 5 Live to find out what ordinary voters were thinking. The answer, it turned out, could be summarised as, "Hello Ed Miliband, you're rubbish." In case the Labour leader hadn't grasped this message after the first two or three times, caller after caller helpfully expanded on it. They interrogated him in much the way a pack of Alsatians might interrogate a rag doll. The phone-in, hosted by Victoria Derbyshire, began with technical problems. First, a fault with Mr Miliband's microphone made him sound like a malfunctioning robot (naturally it took producers some time to notice anything was wrong). Then the signal to the radio car from which he was speaking cut out. From Mr Miliband's point of view, this proved the phone-in's high point. Mr Miliband listened helplessly. How could he defend himself without sounding upset, or attacking the listener? "Well," he said at last, "I'll definitely pass on your compliments to Peter Hain, I'm sure he'll be pleased about that..." That's another problem with being a politician in a democracy: not only does the law prohibit you from having your critics quietly poisoned in a sushi restaurant, you can't even criticise them back. Callers would tell Mr Miliband he was unelectable and clueless, and all he could say in reply was, "I'm afraid we'll have to agree to disagree... Obviously we have a difference of view about that..." His enforced courteousness made the exchanges all the more excruciating. I wondered what his aides were doing. Probably trying to sever the signal from the radio car. One caller, Gavin from no specified town, was marginally friendlier. He suggested a way Mr Miliband could win Labour the next election, short of resigning. "If he cuts tax on petrol," said Gavin confidently, "he'll have a hundred million voters straight away." You could sense Mr Miliband's ears pricking up. That's more than 200 per cent of the vote. Almost as high a percentage as Putin got. In the end the cruellest comment came from someone who wasn't even on-air. "The advice [Tony Blair] gives me," said Mr Miliband, "is, "Be yourself."" Surely not even Mr Miliband's worst enemy would want him to do that.