Ed Miliband was never truly loved by the Labour party. Even when it was announced that he had beaten his brother David to the leadership, there was no massive cheer. It was more of a celebratory yelp from sections of his supporters in the crowd, whilst everyone else took a few seconds to recover from the shock, before remembering they should clap. 

Three days later, in his keynote speech, he issued the cry, “We are the optimists, and we will change Britain,” as the Killer’s ‘Use Somebody’ began to sound across the hall. Use somebody, yes. Just maybe not Ed Miliband.

The closeness of the polls during the last few weeks of the Election belied the fact that Labour had been far behind for so long. The Conservative Party’s panic at finding themselves in a tight election race was largely due to their being caught off guard when the competition finally managed to stand up. Before then, their whole election strategy was essentially: “Seriously, Ed Miliband, Prime Minister?! LOL.”

In the past month of Milifandom and “Hell yes, I’m tough enough”, it’s easy to forget that, at the start of the campaign, Ed Miliband was being hidden away from the public, and his face deliberately kept off election leaflets, lest anyone be reminded who the Labour leader actually was.

Soon after he took over the leadership, the press attempted to brand him as “Red Ed”. Red Ed, so the narrative went, was the son of an immigrant Marxist sociologist, with backing from the unions and a history of student activism. He was going to drag the Labour party wildly to the left, single-handedly saving or ruining Britain, depending on which paper you read. Yet Labour, desperate to convince the nation that they could be trusted to run an economy, decided simply to opt for mid-lane cruising.

More radical left-wing policies were dropped. Trident had to be renewed, because Labour needed to show it loves this country and will happily blow it up in self-defence, if necessary. Renationalising the railways wasn’t adopted as policy, as this sounded a bit too left-wing, and so a review of the franchising was mentioned instead. They voted with the Conservative Party to cap welfare spending – excluding pensions and some welfare benefits – at £119.5 billion.

The list of cuts that civil servants have drawn up in order to keep spending below this mark is as extraordinary as it is combative, and almost all will deeply affect society’s poorest. It’s a high price to pay for a game of “anything you can do…”, and quite possibly the reason for their annihilation in Scotland.

In his attempts to further convince the country of his party’s eligibility to govern, Miliband ended up rounding on his own support base. The unions had thrown their weight behind him during voting for the new leader, but, after a scandal with union involvement in selecting a Labour candidate in Falkirk, and amid on-going accusations that Labour was too close to the unions, Miliband cut some of the ties. The reform was a popular move in the party, passing with 86 per cent of the vote, but Miliband lost touch with his strongest support base.

It is true that the media never gave Miliband an easy time. His press officers should probably take most of the blame for the awkward images of him eating a bacon sandwich or disliking beer. But it truly says something when Alastair Campbell, the man for whom the political satire The Thick Of It might as well be a biopic, calls the press coverage of Ed Miliband “beyond parody”.

Having vast swathes of the country’s print media desperately finding any which way they can to claw at his credibility was never going to make the Election a nice ride for Miliband. Yet, at the start of the campaign, not even his party was convinced of his credibility – such was his performance up until that point. It was hardly the ideal start to an election.

Ed Miliband’s leadership was never a success. Despite one or two highlights, and a small rally of the cult of personality at the end, he never seemed to take off. Instead, he shuffled along towards the election, never finding a way to leave David Cameron in the dust.

Now the pledges carved into stone will have to serve as a decorative feature in his back garden, rather than a yardstick of successful government. Labour will move on swiftly from his resignation, without too much looking back. There are plenty of new candidates already beginning to jostle for Ed’s former job – maybe even, over in New York, someone just like him. 

@alex_jmatthews