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Sunday Review: Ed Miliband on Englishness

10/06/2012, 07:00:33 AM

by Anthony Painter

The Labour party approaches the politics of Englishness rather as Perseus would have approached the Medusa – best avoided if at all possible and if it has to be encountered then no eye contact should be made at any cost. Last Thursday, Ed Miliband talked confidently about the Medusa but thought it best not to enter the cave.

Unfortunately, the Medusa still must be slain.

The speech had quite a nice pace to it and succeeded in many of its rhetorical flourishes. If in doubt, talk about common humanity, Morris, Ruskin and pulling together. This will always be safe ground for a Labour orator – and it does provide some significant crossover into English romanticism too.

No harm done – it can’t, as Miliband argued, be all pounds and pence. The romantics would have been distraught at the omission of shillings but time moves on. On the negative side, we can only hope that the phrase ‘progressive patriotism’ will never be uttered again. Overall though, I’m glad he made the speech – it needed to be done and was long overdue from a Labour leader.

Miliband skidded between the cultural and the political as if there was no distinction between them when it came to his analysis of Scottish nationalism. Unless I’ve misread modern Scottish nationalism I’m not sure if Alex Salmond is really in the business of forcing people to choose between their Scottishness and Britishness. That would certainly seem to sit rather oddly with the passage from his Hugo Young Lecture of early this year where he argued that there would always be a ‘social union’ based on ‘our shared economic interests, our cultural ties, our many friendships and family relationships’. He is asking Scotland to (with notable exceptions such as the currency and the monarchy) choose Scottish political institutions over the British state.

The speech was rather more definitive when it came to distinguishing English culture and political institutions. For Miliband, English cultural expression is “not about an English Parliament or an English Assembly.” So wave the flag of St.George like Bobby Moore was still captain of England but don’t get all political about it. We’ll have none of that.

In this argument was the speech’s central weakness. This would have been a good speech in 1996. Things have moved on considerably since. It is now clear that Scottish devolution was not only the culmination of one process – a creation of institutions to match a rejuvenated civic Scottishness – but the beginning of another process. The claim on ever greater powers for Scotland may or may not result in independence.

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Hang on, did Ed Miliband just change Labour’s local government policy?

08/06/2012, 03:22:19 PM

by Atul Hatwal

The headlines for Ed Miliband’s speech at the Royal Festival Hall yesterday have focused on English identity. Understandably so. But in the roll-out of this initiative, Labour’s leader seems to have slipped in a surreptitious policy change. One that has not been trailed or widely discussed.

Until now, the Labour party has backed city mayors. The policy was in the last Labour manifesto and supported in parliament: in January, Hilary Benn, Labour’s shadow secretary of state for communities and local government, was clear, “we believe that elected mayors can offer a highly effective form of local leadership”.

That was then.

Following up yesterday’s speech, Ed Miliband has penned an article for the Daily Telegraph today, entitled, “The England I love is defined by its spirit”. In this piece, he makes a very specific point,

“…we should get on with devolving power away from Westminster to English local authorities and the people, without the need for mayoral referendums or such-like.”

At the Festival Hall there was no mention of “mayoral referendums or such-like”.

This isn’t a glib insertion. Each word in an article such as this is carefully weighed. During the drafting it will have been seriously discussed before being included.

Clearly, the public rejection of mayors in city referenda in May by all cities except Bristol was a problem, but this was as much to do with the government’s ludicrous refusal to fully define what powers the mayors would actually have.

It’s hard to ask people to back a change if it isn’t clear what the change will be.

On the assumption that any extension of directly elected city mayors would require a public vote, Miliband’s words mean that Labour has shifted policy so that the party now accepts the status quo of local government.

Bye-bye direct democracy.

For Ed Miliband personally, this issue has always been a difficult one. In his own constituency, the local Labour party has been implacably opposed to directly elected mayors. It meant that in the run-up to the referenda on mayors, Labour’s leader was supporting them while his own local party was in opposition.

Within the party, it prompted a widespread sense of incredulity that the leader of the Labour party could not prevail on his own local party to back a flagship Labour policy on local government at the local elections.

It would seem that this is a problem Ed Milliband will not have to face again.

Atul Hatwal is editor at Uncut

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Could Ed Miliband become the accidental prime minister?

29/05/2012, 07:00:53 AM

by Dave Talbot

As the results of Labour’s leadership election were read out, a collective sigh of relief echoed through the Tory ranks. The prevailing thought in British politics was that David Cameron had already won the next general election.

The Labour party had been demonstrably stupid. The party that had governed for thirteen years had chosen to be comforted, rather than challenged. Ed Miliband would never walk through the door of Number 10, except only as a guest. The party, so the commentariat thought, had chosen the wrong Miliband – and would suffer the electoral consequences.

For many months the analysis held true; the public just couldn’t see the junior Miliband as PM material, the party’s economic reputation was in tatters and barely disguised mutterings of discontent began to ripple through the parliamentary Labour party.

The elephant in the room was Miliband himself. His personal ratings were absolutely dire. At one point only 4% thought he’d be good in a crisis, and 5% a natural leader. Just as Cameron had to prove that the Tories cared, Miliband needed to show he wasn’t a geeky loser. Voters told Tory focus groups that they thought the Labour leader was odd, weird and strange. More odd Ed than red Ed.

How the wheel of political fortune turns. Miliband, for so long uncomfortable in his own skin and unsure of his position, has overtaken the man seemingly born to rule. Cameron’s poll ratings have slumped alarmingly, whilst Miliband’s have increased by 22% – a dramatic shift by any standard. Having triumphed in the local elections, a consistent poll lead has also emerged. It is not quite a transformation from Wallace to Winston, but the shift is in the right direction.

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The Sunday review on Monday: Ed Miliband’s speech and Phil Collins’ hook at the Progress conference

14/05/2012, 07:00:07 AM

by Jonathan Todd

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, but to be Ed Miliband was very heaven.

Rejection of our Tory government has given us 824 new Labour councillors. Rejection of austerity by French and Greek voters presages a new chapter in Europe’s history. Everything seems to be moving in Miliband’s direction. He said this would be a one-term government and maybe it just might.

He began as leader by talking about the squeezed middle and was derided for doing so – but not now. As Alison McGovern noted, when introducing him as key note speaker to the Progress annual conference on Saturday, squeezed middle was the Oxford English Dictionary’s word of 2011. Just as it is undoubtedly worrying that the definitive English dictionary conflates the plural with the singular, even if these two words demonstrate our leader’s capacity to capture the zeitgeist, so too the potency of Miliband’s omnishambles line has been undeniable. No wonder Mary Riddell told the conference: “Ed Miliband has proved himself to be so far ahead of public opinion.”

A new dawn has broken, has it not?

Phil Collins opened his remarks to the conference with this quip. And the sun was shining on Saturday. But it was chillier in the sun than might have been expected.

Collins suspects the Tories will try to turn the general election into a leadership referendum. Recent polling gives some support to this view. He also expressed a “slight worry that the return of growth will let Labour off the hook of answering the key question: What does it mean to be Labour when there is no money?” We’ll need a return to growth, which seems elusive, before that becomes a live concern. But there are several crucial points here.

First, the possibility of pro-growth rhetoric, rather than the reality of growth, creating a false sense that Labour can get off Collins’ hook.

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Ed was right, we need to rebuild trust in Labour. Here’s how.

06/05/2012, 07:00:28 AM

by John Woodcock

With so many councillors winning the chance to serve communities who rejected Labour at the general election, Thursday’s election puts us back in contention. But only if we treat this boost as a spur to raise our game.

On Thursday many cast a vote of anger against what the Tories and their Lib Dem helpers are inflicting on families across the country; many cast a vote that recognised that Labour was speaking their language again; but most did not vote at all.

So Ed Miliband struck exactly the right tone the morning after the results. This is a moment for determination, not hubris. Ed was right to address directly the overwhelming majority of people who who didn’t vote at all on Thursday. The pledge to ‘work tirelessly between now and the next general election to win your trust’ is exactly what a weary nation deserves to hear.

The grim mood on the doorstep felt like more than the usual reluctance to engage with local polls mid-way through a parliamentary term. The particularly low turnout was a symptom of a genuine malaise: people are doubtful that the mainstream parties can offer anything that will make a real difference.

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Flashman feels the pressure

30/04/2012, 05:30:40 PM

by Sanjay Patel

Red-faced, splenetic and in a corner. That’s where David Cameron finds himself after his Commons performance today.

There’s little doubt, this was the angriest David Cameron has been at the despatch box. That nice, mild mannered, likeable chap who hugged a huskie (or something like that) was nowhere to be seen. As ever when rattled, Cameron gave into his emotion, he channelled it. And as so often when a politician indulges in a response riven with emotion, tipped over into parody.

The Tory MPs might have liked what they heard and bayed for more, but it won’t look like that on the news. The lasting image will be of Flashman hurling invective across the floor of the House, sneering at Dennis Skinner to claim his pension.

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The polling that explains why Ed Miliband is right to lead on Hunt

30/04/2012, 07:00:04 AM

by Atul Hatwal

What’s the best attack on the Tories? For Ed Miliband, the fate of Jeremy Hunt has been the priority, apparently at the expense of highlighting the return of recession.

Commentators from all sides of the left have been critical: most voters already think all politicians are far too close to the media barons. The Hunt affair only confirms this and expending valuable political time on the intricacies of the Ministerial code instead of hammering home Tory failure on the recession totally misses the point.

It’s an understandable view. But wrong.

Jeremy Hunt is small fry. This issue is actually about leadership, David Cameron’s and Ed Miliband’s.

If the Labour leader has a single task to achieve before the next election, he must to narrow the gap with David Cameron on who the voters prefer as prime minister.

To understand the scale of challenge, it’s worth reflecting on a salutary fact: at the last general election on May 3^rd, YouGov surveyed people on their preference for prime minister. Gordon Brown was the choice of 26% with David Cameron on 32%. In the nineteen months of his leadership, across 40 polls, Ed Milband has never bettered Gordon Brown’s dismal benchmark.

Huntgate gives Miliband an opportunity to help change the way that the public looks at him, and David Cameron.

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What on earth is going on with politics at the moment?

19/04/2012, 07:00:53 AM

by Peter Watt

Does anyone know what is going on out there? Really? Until a month ago it was all so much simpler.

The Tories didn’t really have a coherent tale to tell but then nor did anyone else so it didn’t really matter all that much. They bumbled along making mistakes and generally looking incompetent. But crucially voters had been persuaded that they were dealing with an out of control deficit that Labour had caused.

And that was the end of the discussion.

Anyway, they had David Cameron and he looked and sounded prime ministerial, made tough decisions and even diplomatically bashed the Germans and French. No matter how bad it got, he was their trump card. And Labour, not to put too fine a point on it, had its own problems: perceptions of economic incompetence and a leader who was still finding his feet as far as voters were concerned.

But then came the budget and suddenly the Tories and David Cameron are wobbling.

All that bravado and self-confidence appear shaken to its core. Instead of charting a route to sunnier times the budget looked elitist, favouring the rich. And worse it looked muddled as its measures unravelled and established more and more losers.

Ed Miliband gave one of his finest performances in the Commons after Osborne’s budget speech. The discomfort on the faces of David and George was there for all to see, and on the benches behind them you could see doubt.

Over 4 weeks later the budget is still the issue of the moment, and at issue is the Government’s credibility. George Osborne appears to have disappeared and no one on the Government side seems overly keen to defend the finance bill. Certainly not David Cameron; he seems intent on avoiding answering any of Ed Miliband’s questions at successive PMQ’s.

Ed’s victories at the despatch box have rattled Cameron. And the more rattled David Cameron gets the less prime ministerial he looks and sounds. His attacks become more and more sneering, dismissive and personal and his lack of attention to detail becomes ever more obvious. It’s not attractive.

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Ed’s funding proposals: Nearly but not quite

16/04/2012, 07:00:55 AM

by Peter Watt

Yesterday morning Ed Miliband used his slot on the Andrew Marr show to outline some eye-catching new proposals on funding political parties. It sounded good and it almost was, but it could end up being a disaster.

First let’s expose some myths.

The Labour party does not receive the majority of its income from the trade unions. In an average, non-general election year, income comes roughly from the following sources:

£8 million in affiliation fees from trade unions;
£7 million from the tax payer in Short money and so on;
£5 million from individual membership subscriptions.

This gives a “definite” income of about £20 million per year. In addition the Labour party gets:

£2 – 5 million in donations from individuals, companies and trade unions; and
£5 million from other things like commercial income, legacies and dinners.

This gives a potential income of £27 – £30 million per year. Clearly in the run up to an election you would expect an increase in donations. So Ed’s cap of £5000 per year will hurt. Under his proposal this will impact between £2 and £5 million per year and more in the year before an election.

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