All geek to me: will the real Ed Miliband stand up?

He is doing – well, OK. But given the state of the economy, a fractious coalition and a succession of cabinet gaffes, you would think Ed Miliband would be riding far higher in the polls.

But although voters are still putting Labour between five and 10 points ahead of the Conservatives, surveys show Cameron is out in the lead when it comes to job approval.

Take the latest Yougov poll in the Sunday Times. There is some good news for Ed, who leads the way when it comes to being “more in touch with ordinary people”. But just one in four of those surveyed think he is up to the job, while even fewer said he looked like a prime minister in waiting.

And Ipsos Mori, in the Standard, gave Cameron the edge on a whole range of personality traits: tougher, smarter, more fun to meet in person, and better values.

In an effort to address this credibility gap, Labour has produced a new video, Ed the Movie, broadcast at the party conference today. The political bio-pic is a familiar tactic in the United States, as a way of introducing an unknown political leader to the wider public, or transforming an unflattering image.

And his conference speech, delivered without a script, continued the theme: Miliband talked of his time at Haverstock comprehensive in north London, labelling it “really tough”, but insisting he had “learned to get on with people from all backgrounds, whoever they were”.

According to Labour, it is about “letting people know where Ed Miliband comes from, the roots of his values and what drives him on”. And. no doubt, a not-so-veiled swipe at the Eton-educated David Cameron, all the more so following the scandal over Andrew Mitchell’s upper-class temper fit at a Downing Street policeman the other week.

I’m my own person, and I’m going to do it my way. Ed Miliband MP, Leader of the Opposition

There was a tribute to his family, too, their flight from Nazi persection and the political values they had taught him. “It is this upbringing who has made me a part of who I am – a person of faith, not of religious faith, but a faith nonetheless.”

Mr Miliband has insisted that “I’m my own person, and I’m going to do it my way.” So instead of trying to overcome his image as an uber-geek, the Miliband film positively embraced it, with former schoolfriends talking about his genius with maths, and plenty of paludits from students he taught at Harvard.

That would not go down too well with strategists across the pond, where the aim is to appear like a totally regular guy, even if you are a multi-billionaire with foreign bank accounts, several homes and an elevator for your cars.

A regular Joe

Mitt Romney, if he were elected, would be the second richest person ever to hold the office of president of the United States. But image makers think voters would recoil from someone like that. They want to think the president is someone like them, the better to understand the pressures they are under and the choices they face.

Romney’s own background is a million miles from gritty, but at the Republican National Convention his wife Ann was wheeled out to talk about how the couple lived in a basement apartment and survived on pasta and tinned tuna.

There was a flurry of efforts to make him seem more compassionate and likeable, with testimony from families he helped as a Mormon bishop in Boston. Then came that leaked video of him writing off the 47 percent of Americans who don’t pay federal taxes, and the image makeover had to start over again.

A new ad proclaims Romney’s commitment to helping the poor and ininsured, but you cannot help but be reminded of that moment in 1992 when George HW Bush mistakenly read out the background notes on his cue card: “Message – I care.”

So perhaps Ed Miliband is right to keep it authentic, to deliver his keynote speech in his own words, and without notes. This, at a time when trust, transparency, and honesty are all highly valued by voters, who are easily disillusioned by anything fake.

Makeover mayhem

And he might do well to note the example of Canadian Reform Party leader Preston Manning, who tried a radical image makeover 15 years ago. Out went the beige suits, in came a hair dye job and even laser surgery to get rid of his owlish specs.

But despite the transformation, as the Toronto Globe and Mail reported, “the much hoped for breakthrough in Ontario never materialised… Vast parts of Canada remained terra incognita for Reform.”

Ed Miliband, then: a professor trapped in a politician’s body, the man who told Piers Morgan that he “used to be good at the Rubik’s cube”, and proud of it. But a leader of the opposition who even Harriet Harman has described as largely unknown to most of the public.

There is an apparent unease, among his advisers about his fondness for jargon and pure academic theory. The New Statesman has talked about a plan called “Project Ed Charisma” and a concerted mission to loosen him up.

Peter Kellner, from Yougov, has some encouraging words, though: “The potential good news for him is that if Labour is 10 percent ahead when its leader is still so unpopular, it could enjoy a much bigger lead, were voters to decide that he is strong, decisive, and up to the job after all,” he wrote.

In the United States, they call it the post-convention bounce. Ed Miliband’s task, post Labour’s conference, is to boost his own ratings as high as his party’s: show he is a leader, rather than someone who happens to be in charge.