Yet Bayesian inference suggests Radcliffe’s reasoning is flawed. The probability of a politician behaving differently when in power compared to when not isn’t decreased by his assessment of Nick Clegg’s performance. Rather the opposite. Ed Miliband may prove no better than Nick Clegg in power based on Radcliffe’s criterion.

Radcliffe also provides evidence for something I believe self-evidently true: that we shouldn’t give a toss about the political views of celebrities. That he has rubbished his own record of backing politicians does little to inspire confidence in his assessment of Ed Miliband. On the basis he is a bit crap at backing the right horse, the probability of Ed Miliband doing a good job if he wins the next election is – if anything – smaller.

Like Alan Strang in Equus, Radcliffe may just have a pathological obsession with deifying the wrong horses.

A year on and it’s still bloody irritating, for three reasons:

First, it is clumsy and rather meaningless (if I were crueller, I’d make a barbed comment about Ed Miliband’s leadership here). The “-led” sits at the end of the phrase awkwardly; the sort of language which is rich in sub-text to policy wonks but rather vacuous to the rest of us. Orwell counselled against using a long word where a short one will do. “Conservative-led” is a syllable too long.

Second, I’m not convinced of the reasons for its use. If Labour wanted to highlight the rightwing agenda of the government and the impotence of the Liberal Democrats in the coalition, why not just call it a Conservative government? Airbrushing the Liberal Democrats from Labour’s attacks would make the point in a far more compelling way.

Yet I think there’s a serious flaw with Labour trying to woo disaffected Liberal Democrat voters by downplaying attacks on the party. Winning the next general election outright will require voters to switch from the Conservatives, Lib Dems, Others and apathy (possibly the hardest task faced by politicians). The sorts of Lib Dem supporters which are likely to be uncomfortable with the coalition are unlikely to switch to the Conservatives or other parties on the right. Labour needs to gamble that it is the natural home of such support. The important thing is make these voters disaffected. I don’t see why direct attacks on the party shouldn’t be a part of Labour’s tactics.

Finally, the phrase irritates me because it is fully consistent with the dog-eared strategy Labour has employed for the best part of thirty years: ‘Tories evil, Labour good’ / ‘Same old Tories’ etc. There are many within the party that are still fighting battles of yore. The fact that David Cameron became Prime Minister by remoulding the Conservatives is one that eludes most on the left. There is something deeply unattractive about such bitter and shrill ideological attacks.* And such simplistic narrative is not without its own downside risks.

*This is true of zealots in all parties, not just Labour.

For what it’s worth, this is a (personal) summary of what I learnt at those hustings:

• The two Eds could barely conceal their contempt for one another. Ed M had a good line about it “being like the Treasury” when Ed B was pulled up for waffling. Ed B made some pointed remarks about the manifesto Ed M wrote.
• Diane Abbott will make the hustings more entertaining, for sure. But she’s likely to drag the other candidates left as they attempt to combat her popularity amongst a fairly vocal section of the Labour party. (See Hopi Sen’s post on why Mili D may come to regret Abbott being on the ballot).
• We should avoid a three-month long public self-flagellation. We lost the last election because we didn’t have a positive vision/narrative for the future of the country. Spending the whole leadership contest picking over what went wrong in 13 years will be an horrifically pointless waste of time and is unlikely to endear us to the electorate (this is an question of balance, not one of avoiding talking about the difficult introspective issues).
• Only two candidates, in my view, showed they had the ‘common touch’ – Diane Abbott and Andy Burnham. The Milibands show flashes of passion, although at times came across as managerial automatons. Ed Balls has a surprising ability to mix verbosity, pomposity and aggression when speaking.
• All of the candidates need better lines on the economic issues facing the country – Abbott, Burnham and the Milis need more substance, Balls need to stop sounding like he’s reading from a textbook.
• The consensus from those in the room tweeting about the event was that Andy Burnham had an awful hustings. I disagree. I thought he performed well and certainly better than could have been expected. He was passionate and refused to abandon his record for expediency – not populist, but principled. I think he will play well on television, too – unlike some of the other candidates. Far from being an “also ran”, I think Andy Burnham may be a dark horse in the campaign. Some of his answers lacked polish and substance, although this will change as the campaign drags on.
• David M was impressive on defence and foreign affairs. His answers on Trident showed real leadership potential, even if they weren’t universally welcomed by the audience (the event was co-sponsored by the CND).
• The battle between the Miliband brothers is going to be a key focus of the media, and their facile analysis of it will annoy and irritate me by the end of the summer.
• Andy Burnham’s make-up was good.
• This is going to be a long campaign, fuelled by the same half-baked phrases and jokes. I’m glad I’ll only be going to a couple of hustings. I’m more glad I’m not one of the candidates.
• We should have had a proper leadership contest in 2007.
• Hecklers should stop looking so smug with themselves. They are not big. Or clever.

I am undecided as to who to support. Genuinely.

In truth there is more that unites the candidates than divides them. Hopefully by September there will be an obvious choice for Leader.