The Liberal Democrat Conference was a massive non-event.

Not really something they can control. Opposition in their party is pretty pointless and they must know that it’s not getting any better any time soon. Other than the terminally stupid among them will understand that their last and best hope is to sit tight and wait for something to turn up. Nothing they say right now will make much of a difference. Under those circumstances a non-event was a result.

Labour’s leaving of Liverpool may or may not be a happy one. If Ed Balls’ contribution to the national debate is anything to go by it will be a journey of decidedly mixed emotions. Mr Balls is not a natural platform orator, but he managed to pull off a few half-decent lines with a good attack on the Conservative position of  ‘it’s still all Labour’s fault’. His defence of Labour’s spending record may have been delivered with some spirit but it was nonetheless half-baked. The bright patches were tempered by a massive overemphasis on apologising for the mistakes of Labour in Government, not so much in the speech itself but in his media outings before hand. The defence itself amounted to not much more than ‘it was all going fine until the banks went tits up’. It might wash, but I fear not.

Now I can hear some readers saying that there was much more to it than that, that I am being selective and even implying that I have not heard nor read the full speech. And guess what, I didn’t, nobody does. I’m taking in this conference in the way that a half interested voter would – by hearing the sound-bites on the goggle box.

Mr Balls is apologising too much because he’s trying to compensate for his culpability and he’s not doing it terribly well. The argument is NOT that Labour failed to regulate the banks, but that while government, both politicians and Civil Service, failed to spot the dangers so did independent financial regulators, the banks themselves, most academic economists, market analysts and HM Loyal Opposition. Civil Society failed to regulate the banks as much as did Government. And neither should Mr Balls be apologising for Labour spending money badly on poorly managed IT projects and lousy MoD procurements. He should be making the point that all Governments spend money badly, the NHS has wasted IT budgets with profound incompetence without discriminating on grounds of the politics of the minister, the MoD has been a catastrophe for some time and EVERYONE has failed. So the issue is not to apologise it is to produce serious propositions for improving governance.

Mr Balls also needs to distance himself from the actions of the Labour Treasury at least to some extent. He has no choice. Otherwise he is always Gordon Brown’s henchman – this isn’t about loyalty. He could plausibly argue that his key period at the Treasury was at a time spending was not out of control and, since leaving in 2004, he spent only 12 months with an economic brief. He should also be arguing; ‘yep, there may have been a few things wrong but we also got a lot right’. However he does it he needs to fight back on a personal and political level

As much of a worry for Labour as what it’s leaders are saying is how they look. As much as anything else Ed Balls isn’t carrying off the Mia culpa bit because it just doesn’t suit him. He looks a bit of a bully and the haircut and general demeanour doesn’t help. As for the other Famous Mister Ed it is always going to be a problem that he just doesn’t cut a figure in the slightest. He’s above average height but doesn’t come over with any stature. He continually appears in clothes that don’t suit him and makes the mistake of appearing in shirt sleeves for which he is the wrong shape. Some of us would love it were this stuff not important but it is and he can’t change that, so he has to deal with it. We can at least  thank him for not appearing in a baseball cap. Ed Miliband, like Mr Balls, lacks the natural presence of a stage performer – but that will matter less if he gives himself some stature. He can change all this, he has time yet to ‘grow into the role’ – but he has to start now and it starts by him accepting that there is a problem and a solution.

Mr Miliband will not win or lose an election by what he says on the Conference platform, but he has to start showing sometime that he is capable of being Prime Ministerial, and capable of putting Labour in a challenging position. To do so he will require game changing moments that demonstrate an ability to make the political weather. He has done that to some extent with his words on ‘hack gate’ but that was home ground for an opposition leader, especially the Labour sort. What he hasn’t done yet is demonstrate that he can construct a convincing political narrative and take his party in a credible direction. To do so he too must start by defending Labour’s record before he takes himself down with the Good Ship Mia Culpa.

Ed Miliband has probably got till the May 2012 local elections to show in concrete polling data that he can be an asset to his party. It’s not long. So as Paul Weller put it, “stop apologising for the thing you never done, for time is short and life is cruel and it’s up to us to change …”.