Benn: ‘Hugely impressive’

Hilary Benn, shadow environment secretary, reacts to Ed Miliband’s leader’s speech, to politics.co.uk.

“I thought it was magnificent. That’s leadership for you. He spoke to the party, he was honest about the lessons we need to learn, but he set out a vision for the future. I thought it was hugely impressive.

“Ed was being honest about what he thought. He believes in being straight. That’s one of his great qualities as a leader. Really it was a speech about the future.

What he said about optimism is what defines the difference in politics. Yeah, we need to deal with the deficit and he was very clear about that but we also need to have ambition – hope for what this country can achieve.”