Recent posts have discussed confidence.  How Obama has it big time.  How  Gordon regained it, briefly, but is losing it.  How Mandelson is now the Labour voice of confidence, albeit in the wrong, and lately much diminished House (of sleeze?).  How Cameron and Osborne, economic ‘novices’, do not readily  inspire.

The timing was right. “With a crashing and roaring through the undergrowth the big beast is back!” Or in another animal analogy, from Athony Grimson, describing a one sided encounter with Mandelson’s representative in the Commons, “It was like sending a boy with a pea-shooter to take on a fully grown rhinoceros.”

At a time when we need some cheer, Ken provides it with his ebullience, authenticity, a ‘devil-may-care-frankness’, his self-assurance.  Add to this the perception that he talks about the economy as if he really does know what he’s talking about.  And in language we can understand!

However, the characteristic that is most frequently comented on is his “easy authority”.  Or, as Grimson puts it “the sense he conveys of being at ease with himself”.

In any  pitch, it is easy authority that will carry the day!