IN Monday’s The Issue we had the two predictable stances from the Conservative Party and the Labour Party as to the merits of Ed Miliband’s leadership.

I have only met Ed Miliband once and that was when he was a small boy at his father’s house when I went to talk about postgraduate research.

I think he was arguing with his brother about a rattle (I could be wrong).

The problem for Mr Miliband is not his nerd/startled panda image, the difficulty is the policies he proposes.

A vital factor in leadership is having a clear sense of direction and, if you are leading the Opposition to the Government, having a completely credible alternative set of policies.

Mr Miliband was part of the Tony Blair/Brown reforms of the Labour Party and the clear move into being a pro-business, market-driven, belligerent party that cared more about Daily Mail headlines than the British people.

Generating more inequality and reducing public services were hallmarks of governments in which Mr Miliband was a minister.

The Labour leader cannot put clear water between himself and the Conservatives, because when you strip away the rhetoric he is proposing Tory policies.

Now he says he won’t reverse the cuts and he supports the Government pay restraint on the public sector.

He supports the Afghan war and wasting of billions of our money dropping bombs on Libya.

Clearly he has no desire to reverse the health service reforms that will effectively destroy the NHS.

Like David Cameron, although he says there are undeserving senior capitalists, he is unwilling to actually do anything real about it.

On almost every issue, be it nuclear power, student fees, replacing Trident or climate change, you can see him following the Tory line.

Mr Miliband comes across as useless, because he has nothing new to say and flounders in the wake of the Tory ship. He will be a leader when he says what is happening is wrong, sets out a real alternative and fights for it.

DAVID WILLIAMS Green group leader Oxford City Council