Ed Miliband « Labour Uncut

Posts Tagged ‘Ed Miliband’

Ed’s handling of Europe is eroding trust in his leadership

20/05/2013, 02:08:20 PM

by Dan McCurry

In 1997, Tony Blair won an election by occupying the traditional home ground of the Tories. In 2010, Gordon Brown fought off the Tories by creating a clear dividing line between us and them. Today, Ed Miliband’s strategy is less easy to define, but I contend that it involves avoiding debate with the Tories. This is not good. This can be extremely damaging.

Miliband said at conference 2012: “The Labour party lost trust on the economy. And under my leadership, we will regain that trust.” I don’t think he has increased trust in the Labour brand. In some ways it has been damaged since he made this speech.

The Tories have a far more coherent economic policy than we do. Even though the whole world agrees that we were right and they were wrong, they have a clear offer and we have a confused one. Ed Balls and Rachel Reeves did a terrific job of explaining the difference between austerity and Keynesianism, but our commitment to a Keynesian offer has been vague and tentative. This is in contrast to Gordon Brown who confronted and contrasted Tory policy with our own Keynesian plan.

Most of the debate on the economy is over now, and people have a settled view of the parties. It’s likely that we are returning to positive growth, although few would attribute this to the government’s policies, so it is questionable as to whether they will benefit at the polls, even if the feel-good factor returns. Trust, in general, is likely a more important issue at the next election.

The problem with trust is that it is a two-way relationship. Would you trust someone who doesn’t trust you? Of course not. Would you trust a politician who won’t tell you his policy? Of course not.

How about a politician who won’t tell you his policy, because the other guys will attack it, and he thinks that you are incapable of sifting the arguments? No, you wouldn’t take kindly to that either.

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Miliband must make, not accept, the political weather

20/05/2013, 07:00:18 AM

by Jonathan Todd

“Are our problems so deep nobody can actually make a difference to them? My emphatic answer to that is yes.” The state of the nation was revealed in Ed Miliband’s slip of the tongue in the run-up to the local elections. Only one in three of those eligible to vote in these elections bothered to do so, down 10 points from when these seats were last contested in the halcyon days of 2009. Where given the opportunity, one in four voters gave their support to Ukip, which is as near as it gets to voting ‘none of the above’.

This is no glad, confident morning. It is a nervous twilight. “When Cameron talks”, as Rick Nye notes, “about the global race – the opportunities that lie ahead for Britain and the risks of being left behind” – those that voted Ukip “look at their very personal race, and fear it has already been run. They feel they have been abandoned by all political parties. It is no accident that Ukip does disproportionately well among older, non-graduate, white men.”

One Nation Labour is yet to convince that it can build hope in this cold climate. Politicians make, as well as experience, the weather, however. Perhaps voters would be more confident about the future if Ed Miliband seemed to them more of a prime minister in the waiting with answers to their problems.

Conservatives have long insisted that Cameron looks more prime ministerial than Miliband. Given that Cameron is presently the prime minister, this is to be expected. Yet Miliband is behind where Cameron and Tony Blair were at the same stages in their leaderships in terms of being perceived ready to be prime minister.

While 19 percent more voters thought Jim Callaghan “the best PM” than thought Margaret Thatcher in the last poll before the 1979 election, the sea change that was that election still swept Callaghan from office. His current polling may not be a barrier to Miliband being a similar sea change prime minister.

But Miliband should not assume such a sea change or that he would be its beneficiary. It’s hard to look at the rise of Ukip and feel we are living in a country moving to the left. This rise has contributed to Cameron finally abandoning his modernisation project and adopting policies reminiscent of their 2001 and 2005 general election campaigns: tough on welfare, strident on immigration and offering a referendum on the EU.

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Miliband’s Progress speech was virtually ignored. That’s a worry.

14/05/2013, 07:00:57 AM

by Ben Mitchell

Ed Miliband made a speech over the weekend that literally dozens of people will have read. More were there to see it live. I was one of the former. Opposition leaders make speeches. That’s what they do. That’s what they’re expected to do. Some get labelled as “keynote,” i.e. this is quite important and will probably form the direction of policy X so pay close attention. The leader’s address at conference fills a few column inches for several days. Either we have a Prime Minister in waiting or it’s back to the drawing board. Saturday’s speech falls into the “strictly for diehards” category.

To sum it up: it wasn’t very good. That’s the charitable conclusion. Being brutally frank, it was actually pretty dire. Or maybe that’s the charitable conclusion. Speaking on Saturday, to the Blairite think-tank Progress (not exactly on home territory for Ed), Miliband said….something. To be honest, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what he said.

It was a hotchpotch of his responsible capitalism vision; the usual to be expected attacks on the government; listening to voters; learning lessons from New Labour – where we got things right, where we got them wrong – more listening to voters; with sprinklings of One Nationism added for extra flavour.

One Nation: the slogan that just will not budge. Still being drummed home to death. We may have tired of it but we’re not going to forget it. The mark of a successful slogan? Not really. I still don’t understand what it means. Or more accurately, what we’re meant to do with it. Alone, it’s meaningless: Labour has broad appeal? It will unite the whole of Britain?

But, all parties profess to do this. Besides, One Nation fails the “elevator pitch:” able to be summarised in one elevator ride. Which isn’t 100% accurate as I’ve just summed it up in a sentence. Unfortunately, the summary alone is so vague it requires several more elevator rides. Heck, it might be easier just to get in one, hit the emergency alarm, and hope the rescue takes several hours.

I couldn’t help but feel I’d read/heard this speech several times before. Probably because it’s been delivered several times before. Ed’s conference address last year (rightly hailed a triumph) has been regurgitated more times than should be humanly possible.

“One Nation is about everybody having opportunity and having a responsibility to play their part.”

Sounds very Big Society to me.

“A country that acknowledges the difficulties, accepts the anxieties, knows that times are going to be hard, but that is confident that change can come.

“A country that knows that we work best when we work together.”

See above.

“All the lessons of our history, from the industrial revolution to the post-war reconstruction, are that we need a recovery made by the many.”

This is David Cameron speaking.

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Farewell to blogging

13/05/2013, 01:45:47 PM

by Peter Watt

Well it had to happen at some point I guess. After nearly three years and (I think) just under 150 posts I am giving up political blogging. I have in all honesty been treading a fine line for a while now as I have tried to balance the competing pressures of my “day job” and my blogging. It seems a long time ago now but the person who asked me to write for Uncut first was John McTernan; but I said no as I was still unsure as to whether or not I wanted to raise my head above the parapet.

My book had caused a bit of a stir earlier that year and I decided to keep my head down. But then Tom Watson asked me to write a post when he was guest editing the site. My first post was during the leadership contest and was advice for the incoming leader – something of a recurring theme!

Originally I wrote the occasional post and then one every other week before finally agreeing with Sion Simon that I would write a weekly post for Thursday mornings. Sometimes they flowed easily and at others they were a complete nightmare. At times I felt I could’ve written on a whole range of issues and at times I struggled to find any subject at all. But I am pleased to say that I have not missed a post since; and that includes writing posts on holiday and over Christmas. I’m not absolutely sure that my wife Vilma is as pleased about this as I am.

I have enjoyed the variety of people from across the political spectrum that have commented on, tweeted or messaged me about my posts. It’s funny how sometimes I wrote things that I was really pleased with and no one seemed to notice. At other times I would rush off something that I was unsure of and it would seem to hit the mark. Occasionally people seem to feel that they could be rude as opposed to simply disagreeing with me. It bothered me a bit at first but not anymore.

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Immigration: facts not fiction, please

08/05/2013, 07:48:31 AM

by Matthew Whittley

Looking at reports of today’s Queen’s speech, where the government is set to announce plans to restrict migrants’ access to benefits, social housing and the NHS, one could be forgiven for thinking that most migrants are living the life in five bedroom social homes, staffed with their own personal GP.

But the measures mooted will have no impact on levels of immigration, because people don’t come here to claim benefits, they come to work. Of the 850,000 migrants to have arrived from Eastern Europe since 2004, only 13,000 were claiming Jobseekers Allowance in Febuary 2011. Those same migrants are about 60% less likely than natives to claim benefits or live in social housing.

And even if they were “benefit tourists” migrating in search of an “attractive benefits system”, the UK wouldn’t have been high on their list of potential destinations. The UK spends less on benefits than many other European nations including Germany, France and Italy. It would appear that we are not a “soft touch” after all.

Already this morning we’ve heard from Jeremy Hunt touring the broadcast studios about migrants “clogging up” the NHS and claims from government ministers that migrants “expect something for nothing”. This choice of language paints the picture of immigrants as a burden on resources, when in fact they are net contributors to the public finances; we would be worse off without them.

In the four years from 2004, Eastern Europeans contributed over 35% more in taxes than they received in benefits. This language also fosters a climate of suspicion and division that can easily turn to discrimination and xenophobia. We only have to look at Greece, where violent attacks against immigrants have become commonplace, to see where this can lead.

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Labour’s performance last Thursday simply wasn’t good enough

06/05/2013, 02:09:32 PM

by David Talbot

Amid the breathless, endless, commentary on the rise of UKIP, scant attention has been levelled at the only other serious contender for 10 Downing Street come May 2015. Whilst Conservative losses, and substantive ones at that, were long-foreseen they did of course have the furthest to fall, having swept the previous cycle in 2009. The true test was for the much-heralded one nation Labour. Heavy caveats were potted throughout the media by Labour personnel in the days leading to polling day; these elections are taking place in rural, affluent Tory-dwelling shires, eighty percent of the counties holding elections are represented by a Conservative MP, and control of four Councils and two hundred net gains is the target. Well, in their heart of hearts Labour’s strategists will know that last Thursday was not the triumph needed.

Despite matey assurances to the contrary, last Thursday’s results do not readily translate into the sixty seat Labour majority the party is seemingly on the cusp of securing. Although Labour picked itself up off the floor following the dark nadir of 2009, final national voting projections put the party on a mere twenty-nine percent – which is, ironically, exactly the polling figure Labour slumped to in the annihilation of the 2010 general election. That this appears to not be causing considerable alarm amongst the party faithful is troubling, and to say it is not enough for an opposition in mid-term should be so obvious as to be insulting to highlight.

There is no disguising Labour’s underwhelming performance. Despite sporadic advances in battleground seats such as Hastings, Crawley and Stevenage the results do not suggest that Labour will outright win the next general election. Gaining a mere two councils in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, only just, represents a worryingly poor return. Many party activists, somewhat rightly and understandably, are so consumed by the immediacies of their locale that they have swapped the instant gratification of publicising the fruits of their labour for any nuanced analysis of Labour at large. That the party now enjoys a sixty-two seat majority in Durham is indeed joyous, but that it failed to win in Staffordshire or Lancashire, and is still represented in the low single digits in vast swathes of the south, should temper that cheerfulness somewhat.

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David Cameron and Ed Miliband are both sons of Gordon Brown

06/05/2013, 09:58:01 AM

by Jonathan Todd

There is probably a significant degree of cross-party agreement that Douglas Carswell is wrong to argue that the present government is a continuation of the last. Even David Cameron’s critics in the Conservative party would claim that he is an improvement on Gordon Brown, while many Labour party members see Cameron as the worst prime minister since Margaret Thatcher or perhaps even worse.

Yet the evidence that Carswell is not entirely wrong was clearly on display during the last PMQs. Cameron and Ed Miliband, in one sense at least, jostled for the crown of heir to Brown. They did so by benchmarking their success against how much they are spending or propose to spend on particular public services.

Given the unpopularity of Brown, this is curious politics. To make a virility symbol of state spending is even worse policy. To assume that more government is necessarily moving us closer to solutions ignores even in the best of times the reality of government failure.

These are far from the best of times. There is immense pressure on public resources. And this will continue, as Patrick Diamond notes: “Actuarial estimates suggest that an ageing population will have a bigger impact on public finances than the catastrophic effects of the financial crisis.”

This context demands a politics capable of deliberating seriously about the effectiveness and efficiency of public spending and which doesn’t simply seek to win arguments with reference to how much money is being spent in certain areas. Yet the very first thing that Cameron said in response to Miliband’s questioning was: “This Government believes in our NHS and are expanding funding in our NHS.”

Ring-fencing the NHS budget is supposed to be a signal that the service is safe in Conservative hands. One consequence of these politics is that average GP salaries are preserved at £110,000, while the welfare payments of the very poorest are cut, as the DWP does not benefit from the same ring-fence as the NHS.

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Labour is fighting the wrong campaign

05/05/2013, 09:16:02 AM

by Anthony Painter

Since 1993, Labour performance in county council elections on a national equivalent basis is as follows: 39%, 44%, 42%, 36%, 22% and 29%. Thursday was better than the absolutely disastrous 2009 result that came a year before its second worst defeat in the modern political era. But it was a performance significantly worse than a party expecting to be winning a majority in two years’ time should have had.

The comfortable thing to do now is focus on the Tories’ travails and UKIP’s surge. But for anyone who wants to see a Labour Government in 2015, the far more sensible thing is to focus on Labour for a while. It is very difficult to write a piece cautioning the party about its current direction when so many new councillors have just been elected and so many local campaigns were so effective. That tremendous work absolutely needs to be acknowledged. Unfortunately though, the overall picture is extremely worrying. There has been a spooky silence on this fact since Thursday and that ultimately won’t help Labour win the majority it should in 2015.

Labour’s strategy isn’t working and it needs to reassess radically the approach that it is taking. Labour has decided to adopt Obama 2008-style “hopey-change” as a strategy. The problem is that next election doesn’t have a hopey-change feel to it. People want change but it is a desire for change that is sceptical and grounded in perception of what will be effective rather than wispy visions.

The 2015 election has a “please spare us from George Osborne but don’t be silly” feel to it. If it were an American election it would be 1992 rather than 2008. It’s the economy, stupid but that doesn’t mean anything goes. It’s just as winnable for Ed Miliband’s Labour as it was for Bill Clinton’s Democrats (UKIP as the Ross Perot of the UK anyone?) and Neil Kinnock’s Labour in 1992. One won and one lost and in that tale lies the strategy that can take Miliband to Downing Street.

There is time to correct what has gone wrong over the last few weeks. Moreover, Ed Miliband has come back from set-backs before – stronger, wiser, more effective. His conference speeches in 2011 and 2012 barely merit comparison; the latter was vastly superior which got across a similar message.

Labour’s campaign came to abrupt halt in a down-the-line interview on BBC Radio 4’s World at One. It was the moment when its strategic weakness was completely exposed. Hopey-change met stark reality in what was simply a series of very straightforward questions that any opposition hopeful of winning power should be able to take in its stride.

Miliband’s problem is not one bad interview. It’s what lay behind that interview. And the biggest concern is the policy weakness.

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Good results for Labour but the UKIP surge augurs ill for Ed

03/05/2013, 09:59:45 AM

by Atul Hatwal

This morning Ed Miliband will be luxuriating in the breathing space afforded by the local election results. After a torrid couple of weeks where the Westminster narrative has palpably shifted against him, yesterday’s gains will disrupt the flow of negative stories, temporarily at least.

Not only is Labour on track to do well but UKIP – the new ball of wool for the media kitten – has performed sufficiently strongly to occupy days’ more column inches of reflection and dissection.

The Labour leader deserves his moment of respite. Winning lots of new councillors will revitalise local constituency parties up and down the country and help rebuild a Labour campaign machine that rusted and fell apart over thirteen years in power.

But Ed Miliband should be under no illusions: as good as Labour’s results are likely to be when all the results are declared, they will accentuate the irreconcilable conflict at the heart of his political positioning and no number of smiling photo opportunities with new Labour councillors can avert Labour’s strategic dilemma.

On one side of Ed Miliband is the public. Contrary to the self-affirming assertions within Labour’s online echo chamber of activists and wannabe MPs that the centre ground of British politics is moving left, yesterday’s elections demonstrate something very different.

Whatever is said about UKIP, one thing is clear: disillusioned voters using it as a vehicle for protest are not headed left. There are plenty of left wing options for the type of nihilistic anger harnessed by UKIP but the voters didn’t pick any of them. It wasn’t the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition that surged yesterday.

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We are about to see who really runs the Labour party. Let’s hope it’s not Len McCluskey

01/05/2013, 08:57:15 AM

by Rob Marchant

Recent weeks have not exactly been glory days for Labour. The latest chapter, Monday’s car-crash World At One interview – with Miliband refusing to answer whether Labour would increase borrowing, thirteen times – made for excruciating, if compelling, radio; worse, yesterday’s official admission that Labour will do just that – increase borrowing – has left it exposed. As Nye Bevan might have put it, it enters “naked into the parliamentary chamber”.

But among the various pieces of bad news, there is one which particularly stands out, because it seems not only bad, but irreversibly so.

It is now a week since Len McCluskey’s extraordinary intervention, where he proposed a radical reworking of Labour’s programme, including the sacking of three shadow cabinet members. Not to mention the Labour leader’s robust and accurate response that McCluskey “does not speak for the Labour party”.

While the parliamentary lobby has moved on from the story, those familiar with the party’s organisation and history are still feeling the impact; a storm in a teacup it was not. And if Labour’s strategists are worth their salt, they might care more about McCluskey than about one bad interview; perhaps more, even, than a bet-the-farm gamble on increasing the national debt, two years before an election.

Why? This not just a textbook spat between union leaders and party leadership, in time-honoured fashion. One that burns brightly in the run-up to conference season every year and then fizzles out.

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