Tea with Mr Miliband

Dunking biscuits with the electorate is all well and good, but any future Labour leader needs some serious policies too

“There might be a knock at the door from the police,” the voice on the phone warned me. Crikey, I hadn’t expected that one. But then when you allow your front room to be the venue for a campaign visit from David Miliband with BBC cameras, furry broom mics and Laura Kuenssberg in tow, you can’t expect normality. The possible police involvement (which never materialised) was raised because, as a former foreign secretary, the elder Miliband has continuing special branch protection, who sometimes like to scope out his surroundings.

In the event there was nothing much to fear from the normal terraced street he came to and regular party members he met. The campaign websites of both David Miliband and Labour mayoral contender Oona King each have a section where you can click to host a house-meeting. My own one was arranged at short notice by The David Miliband Movement For Change, as they are called, to tie in with some workplace and other visits nearby.

Once Labour’s protracted leadership contest concludes, by the end of September, perhaps we can return to normal – or rather the new normal of opposition. Normality is a positive attribute in politics: we are told David M is the “brains” of the two brothers, but Ed is the more relaxed of the two. We know Diane Abbott is a single mother from an immigrant background and Ed Balls had a stammer as a child. Andy Burnham’s main pitch seems to be that he is northern, although all are now paid-up members of the elite London intelligentsia. These details are designed to make the candidates, most of whom have only ever worked for New Labour, appear more normal. Abbott implied that the rest were young men in a hurry when she referred to them as “geeks in suits”, yet all of them are outside the normal curve, however one plots its co-ordinates.

Supping tea with the voters in small-scale domesticated settings requires different skills from huge shouty meetings to trade union “brothers”, but the Queen and Margaret Thatcher have also been at it in a quest for authenticity: both condescended to visit council homes in staged photo opportunities. Ditto Gordon Brown, who was accused of “going from safe-house to safe-house” during the general election (remember Gillian Duffy?) dropping in on party members. Many women are more comfortable having a coffee on the sofa than down the pub, where party meetings have often tended to be.

Yet candidates could go much further. David Miliband’s campaign is working closely with the London Citizens group, a grassroots activists collective that advocates a living wage and amnesty for illegal immigrants. Perhaps the Milibands, Ed, Diane or Andy could move outside their comfort zone and volunteer at a detention centre or soup kitchen to really “get down” with the public and set the campaign alight.

The Mandelson memoirs confirm that Brown couldn’t convince the electorate that he could “do normal”. It’s a pity the candidates are still trying so hard to convince voters that they can. Dunking biscuits is all well and good, but serious policies are needed, and those will come from truly engaging with the outside world rather than endlessly condemning ConDem cuts on the Today programme and preaching to the converted. Still an interesting encounter – and before you ask, I didn’t offer him any bananas.