WHAT, we ask ourselves, has happened to Ed "the geek" Miliband?

After his barnstorming performance on Tuesday, he arrived for his conference Q&A somehow looking taller, broader and with more fizz as if somewhere in Manchester he had nipped into a telephone box and emerged seconds later as Super Ed, faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.

With the words One Nation superimposed on a fluttering Union flag, Super Ed took to the stage jacketless, puffing out his chest and beaming broadly at the adoring audience before him.

Now One Nation Labour, the chief comrade got the audience in the mood by recounting a tale, possibly a very tall tale, about his one-year-old son Sam who was with his grandmother at the time of his keynote speech.

Super Ed said that after watching his daddy on the telly, the toddler turned to his Nan and uttered his first words - One Nation.

The audience roared with laughter and reflected the mood that the party was now at ease with its leader and he was at ease with it.

Of course, if things were not super-duper enough, overnight the crumbling Coalition served up one more politically shambolic dish, which the One Nation Labour leader consumed with relish: the West Coast Mainline franchise fiasco.

Super Ed noted how unbelievably his long list of Coalition incompetences he had read out on Tuesday was incomplete within 24 hours. He urged the PM to get a grip but he would not hold his breath as already ministers were blaming civil servants, all in a pattern, the Labour chief argued - ABC, Anyone But Cameron.

As Super Ed took questions, delegates were desperate to get a word in, holding up and waving anything that came to hand, hats, coats, umbrellas, flags and even crutches.

The One Nation leader zipped through this subject and that, answering each one with aplomb. One could feel the love growing as delegates laughed and applauded; there was even whooping.

Yet the love-in became almost unbearable when one of the delegates, who seemed familiar to Super Ed confided: "I gave you a kiss at the South East conference." The leader blushed and quickly interjected: "I remember I remember."

A few minutes later another female delegate purred and pointed out: "I got a kiss yesterday. I got so many texts." Oh, for goodness sake.

Kisses aside, Ed will be hoping the political Kryptonite he has suddenly discovered will last until 2015. Convincing his party is one thing, convincing the public is another.

Next week, Super Dave, who, no doubt just to out-do Super Ed's 64 minute speech without notes, will take to the stage on a unicycle, juggling beachballs and singing his speech to the tune of Waltzing Matilda. We can but hope.