Cassilis

David Miliband is quietly impressing an interesting range of people. Last spring partisan opponents talked up his stock out of mischief because he was seen as a possible challenger for the leadership. When Brown gave him the Foreign Office this was variously dismissed as a quid-pro-quo for not standing, an attempt to keep his nose away from domestic policy or Brown’s way of keeping him inside the tent as it were. I don’t recall much speculation about how he might perform in the role other than the general observations that he could hardly do worse than his predecessor Margaret Beckett.

But in a cabinet stuffed with mediocre types like Browne, Darling and Balls it’s hardly surprising that Miliband is starting to shine. Off the back of his ‘Democratic Imperative’ speech at Oxford on Tuesday night Iain Martin on Three Line Whip offers some faint praise (even if he can’t then resist a dig over the Lisbon Treaty) and Robin Simcox at the Henry Jackson Society does likewise referring to a “quite brilliant” and “heartening” speech. Don’t expect compliments from the likes of the Telegraph or the vaguely neocon ‘Scoop’ Jackson Society to endear Miliband to Labour traditionalists - see Bob Piper earlier this week for a good example of that reaction. But there’s little doubt in my mind that Miliband has shorn any vestiges of the youthful upstart lacking in substance.