We're still a long way from a general election, there was no need for the leader to set out his stall as a prime minister-in-waiting.

What we got instead was the reintroduction of Ed to the electorate, because that was who the speech was for.

Overall he was more confident than he's been before, and sincere, almost to the point of being earnest. More smiling wouldn't have gone amiss.

There were some jokes, and good ones, then serious business.

In amongst the rhetoric came shafts of his ideological leanings, ready to be shaped into policy by 2015.

Ed wants to address how opportunity for all is being strangled by the ConDems, and open up the sections of society and jobs that are becoming increasingly closed off to all but the privileged few in those "closed circles".

He wants to ditch the old rules and draw up a new code for business. I'll be watching for interest what this is, and hoping that we are not tarred as being the anti-business party, as our enemies have tried this morning.

And Ed said he was his own man. This is what he must prove over the coming years if he is to convince the public to send him to Number 10.