As speculation about Andy Burnham’s pick for chancellor intensifies, Ed Miliband’s name consistently rises to the top of the betting odds. A former special adviser to Gordon Brown after 1997 and then chair of the council of economic advisers at the Treasury, he is eminently qualified.
But there’s a problem. He’s been weighed and measured in the court of public opinion over the past 15 years and voters have long since made up their mind about Edward Samuel Miliband.
And they just don’t like him.
He shafted his brother for the Labour leadership. He couldn’t eat a bacon sandwich. He cosied up to Russell Brand, trying to look cool during the 2015 general election. Before standing next to a piece of granite with his top ten policies carved on it. He’s weird.
It’s not fair, but there it is.
Miliband has two interconnected problems. The first is that he has enormous public recognition. According to YouGov’s tracking poll, 94% of the public knows who he is.
Normally you would assume that’s an advantage for a politician. Alas, his second problem is that 51% of voters can’t stand him. (I refer you to my opening paragraph. Alea iacta est. The die is cast).
So, Andy Burnham would be wise not to provoke the public by making Miliband his chancellor of the exchequer. The role is about politics, not economics. Selling the government’s case on the economy. The cost of living – and Labour’s lamentable ability so far to do much about it – is going to define the outcome of the next general election. Whoever Burnham picks needs to speak the public’s language.
Miliband’s undoubted academic intelligence is not matched by similar emotional intelligence. His record as a bossy energy secretary – who seems immune from the public’s frustration over enduring the highest energy bills in the West – is surely a disqualification from being appointed chancellor, when this government is going to stand or fall over the issue of living standards.
It’s not an agenda suited to Miliband – intellectually or temperamentally. Voters don’t understand why we’re not drilling for oil and gas in our own territorial waters to help get bills down. They don’t much care about Net Zero when it means they can barely afford to fuel their cars or heat their homes. Neither do they want to pay any more in tax, especially, as they see it, going to dole dossers.
While it’s true that Miliband is consistently popular with Labour activists, they are not real people, bless them. And while we’re at it, Yvette Cooper and Pat McFadden – also talked up as potential picks for Number 11 – would be poor choices. Essentially for the same reason as Miliband. Their lack of warmth and brio would do little in selling Burnham’s economic vision to the country.
After the failure of Rachel Reeves as chancellor – little short of a disaster in the job – Labour cannot afford another misstep. She has appeared lost in the role for the past 18 months, visibly diminishing, quarter by quarter. The public senses that no-one is in charge.
In which respect, Burnham’s best bet is to pick the smartest communicator at the top of the party. Unquestionably, that’s Wes Streeting. Labour needs a chancellor for the strivers.
Streeting speaks to those who accept that we’ve in difficult times, but they are still listening – providing they see and hear someone that’s instinctively on their side. They just didn’t believe that about Starmer and Reeves. And they won’t buy it from Miliband.
Streeting is the only senior figure that has routinely shown any willingness or effectiveness in selling the government’s case. Thus, he’s the smartest bet for chancellor, in much the same way Ken Clarke was back in 1993, taking over from the hapless Norman Lamont after Black Wednesday and the collapse of the Conservative government’s economic policy after being forced out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism.
Like John Major three decades ago, Burnham needs a fast reboot on the economy and speedy signs of progress. He would do well to read Streeting’s speech on the economy from last month, one of the better prospectuses from a Labour politician in recent times. Faster growth, lower taxes and crashing through planning constraints. Busting a gut to turn the economy around for the benefit of ordinary people.
That’s what is needed now. Energy and purpose. Unlike the Major government, Burnham still has time and enough goodwill to turn things around. But he won’t do that if his chancellor is not an asset to his government.
And Ed Miliband simply wouldn’t be.
Tags: Andy Burnham, chancellor, Ed Miliband, Wes Streeting
