Labour was always going to be in trouble if David Miliband had won the leadership contest - his brother's YouGov poll demonstrated that Britain's undecided voters were not willing to vote red if the party was dominated by the "New Labour" project that David was so associated with.

His first speech as leader striking an incredible chord with the public who oppose the militant, drastic deficit-cutting methods and support a tax on the banks, the right-wing Conservative press is in fear of Ed Miliband now becoming Britain's Barack Obama, as evidenced by their quick mobilisation to marginalise his populist message by giving him the tag "Red Ed." Of course, to suggest that he answers to the unions because that one-third of the Labour leadership election segments had pushed him into the lead, is like suggesting Obama favours the swing state of Ohio because it swung in his direction.

In return, Miliband has scoffed at the "Red Ed" label, and diplomatically opposed to proposed BBC strike during the Tory party conference, saying there needed to be fair and balanced political coverage.

Remarkably, this "Red Ed" scaremongering takes a page from Senator Joseph McCarthy's playbook in the 1950s, when anything progressive was called "communist" - a very clever attempt to push back popular movements through fear and xenophobia. This was also the case during Newsnight when Michael Heseltine accused Ken Loach of "crypto-communism" because he opposed the cuts that will increase unemployment, poverty, and crime.