Labour Uncut

UNCUT: We must plan to do more for less, says Jonathan Todd

29/09/2010, 02:30:48 PM

“Facing a new world with new challenges, we need to think again about how we can best serve the people we seek to represent”.

So argues an email which Ed Miliband sent to Labour party members last night. As Ed acknowledged in his conference speech yesterday, one of this new world’s realities, even if we were to now have a Labour government, is the necessity of cuts; and one of the challenges, therefore, is to deliver more for less.

Deficit reduction, however, has simply brought into sharper focus an inescapable trend. An ageing society makes ever less viable established means of financing and delivering pensions, health and social care. Innovation will remain a precondition of improved public services beyond the correction of the structural deficit, which all major parties are committed to achieving over this parliament. Successful adaptation to our cold fiscal climate isn’t simply about muddling through coming years but of making sustainable for the long-term, given profound demographic shifts, vital public services. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Uncut | 4 Comments »

INSIDE: Conference diary IV: beef

29/09/2010, 12:21:40 PM

As the Miliband era dawns, and shadow cabinet nominations close today, a new and important figure is born in British politics.

The new leader’s victorious and vindicated campaign manager, Sadiq Khan, swept through Manchester’s echoing halls with an entourage the size of Tooting Bec. He was what the late Biggie Smalls used to call “rolling thirty deep”. (In truth, Uncut counted a mere nine flunkeys riding his slipstream, but the figure he cut was impressive).

A slightly crumpled dresser, fat chains and a pimp cane may not come easy to the man who would be shadow home secretary. But these are the ways he must master if he is to match his entourage and justify his new i/d: Sadiq Diddy.

* * *

At the start of the week, the conference rumour mill had it that Joe Irvin, former political secretary to Gordon Brown, was about to replace Charlie Whelan as Unite’s chief fixer and finagler.

Joe has been denying it to everyone who’ll listen.

“It’s rubbish. Pure speculation”, he told Uncut last night.

Most people assume that he’s just saying that, because nothing has been signed and he is a professional.

Better informed people say that he’s telling the truth. The deal is off. And, for the moment at least, Charlie stays.

The reasons are labyrinthine, and for another day.

* * *

Uncut sallies forth to the defence fringe, where tempers flare. Eric Joyce attacks Bob Ainsworth and David Miliband for “doing nothing” on defence.

Bob shoots back: “I don’t remember you coming up with any ideas when we were in government”.

Eric retorts: “Are you going to take cheap shots or are you going to come up with a Labour policy on defence”.

Gentlemen, please. You can’t fight in here. This is the war debate.

Posted in Inside | No Comments »

UNCUT: The last thing we need is a membership drive, says Peter Watt

29/09/2010, 09:30:45 AM

Rites of passage often involve the adherence to certain rituals that help mark significant moments in life. Think of weddings and think exchange of rings, the best-man’s speech and embarrassing dancing. The point is that the rituals happen almost without thinking and often invoke feelings of familiarity and security.

The same is true for the Labour party. Election victories, election defeats and new leaders are all rites of passage with associated rituals. Generally these rituals are benign at worse and even sometimes helpful. The coming together at conferences to show unity, the cries of ‘all Tories are evil’ and trade union general secretaries condemning the government all help the party feel at ease with itself.

But there is another ritual that almost always occurs and that is far from benign; in fact is positively damaging. The membership drive. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Uncut | 18 Comments »

UNBOUND: Wednesday News Review

29/09/2010, 07:00:28 AM

The speech

This was a whole new style of speech-making. Labour at last has a leader who shops at H&M rather than Marks & Sparks. He sounded nervous at times and tripped over a few lines. But when it came to the big moments, the high Cs of political rhetoric, he hit the note. This speech’s real purpose, a job on the myths peddled by the right-wing press, was tackled head on. He made clear he would have no truck with irresponsible strikes – and was reassuringly responsible about the deficit. – The Mirror

Miliband, who on Saturday bested his brother, former foreign minister David Miliband, to earn Labor’s top job, sought to distance himself at the party’s conference in Manchester from the pro-business, pro-American platform of “new Labor” forged by Tony Blair in the 1990s. At the same time, he signaled that he, too, would position himself as political centrist and was by no means endorsing a return to the days when Labor politics were closely identified with violent union strikes. – Washington Post

SOME LABOUR delegates were clearly deflated leaving the hall yesterday: some are still not reconciled to having Ed Miliband as leader; some were irritated by the way in which he denigrated New Labour’s history; others had gone into the Manchester hall with expectations that were not deliverable in the first place. Labour has still not come to terms with life in opposition. Miliband did well, if not brilliantly. The delivery was pedestrian in parts; too pedestrian to lift the thousands sitting in front of me. Too often, he seemed to regard the applause, when it did come, as an interruption to his oration, rather than a tribute. Too often, the speech seemed to include paragraphs dropped in specifically to neutralise a particular constituency. – The Irish TImes

Labour’s new leader did exactly what he needed to. Miliband, virtually unknown off the Westminster stage, had to give the public a sense of himself. The passages on his parents’ persecution at the hands of the Nazis were useful in providing a political back story, something he did far more successfully than Gordon Brown (no mean feat when your father was a Marxist intellectual, not a protestant minister). Still, it’s hard to plead strong family ties when you’ve just knifed your elder brother in the back. – City AM

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Unbound | No Comments »

UNCUT: Conference sketch, by Siôn Simon

28/09/2010, 05:11:53 PM

A glance at Ed Milband reveals his origins. He is dark. Not just his glossy, black hair, but his eyes. And not just the brows or the glinting coals at the centre. The sockets themselves are subfusc.

His beard is light. In some ways he looks girlish. But his full, fleshy lips have a masculine sensuousness. And they are dark.

In short, he is Italian. His original name was Milibandini. His ties are thinner, too, than British ties. But this is also because he is from a New Generation. Only Mr Bradshaw’s ties are thinner than Sr Miliband’s.

Neil Kinnock does not look like this. He is red and freckled. Mr Kinnock is Sr Miliband’s friend. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Uncut | 3 Comments »

UNCUT: Kill Red Ed. Introduce Real Ed, says Jonathan Todd

28/09/2010, 01:30:11 PM

This afternoon Ed Miliband will introduce himself and reintroduce our party to a country unfamiliar with him and wary of us. The country needs to get to know Real Ed before Red Ed compounds the hostility towards us. This introduction and reintroduction should be made with the narrative which he intends to articulate at the next general election in mind. The first steps he takes as party leader could determine whether or not this journey ends in Downing Street.

A useful political narrative should have three parts: an explanation of where we are; a vision of where we want to get to; and a plan for realising the vision. David Cameron’s general election narrative is predictable. He will describe a country recovered from Labour excess; festooned with the tiny platoons of the Big Society and the ringing tills of prosperity. Rolling back the state, he will argue, took us this far and remains imperative to taking us further into Cameron’s sunny uplands. Hence his commitments to have people keep more of their own money through reduced taxation and his warnings, potentially echoed by almost all of the media, of Labour’s high taxes and big government.

Ed needs to do more than attack this logic. He also needs to promulgate his own contrasting narrative. For his story to have traction he has to confront various realities this afternoon: preparing our movement for the challenges ahead and communicating to the country that the party is prepared to take the steps necessary to meet these challenges.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Uncut | No Comments »

INSIDE: Conference diary III: per non cambiare nulla…

28/09/2010, 11:18:12 AM

As ancient as Rome, as implacable as Sicily, is Lampedusa’s iron law of politics: “bisogna cambiare tutto per non cambiare nulla (everything must change, so that nothing changes) ”.

And so it was last night for two staffers overheard in the Midland bar:

“You’ll never guess who’s doing the Sue Nye job, this week at least”?

“No. Who”?

“Go on, guess”.

“I don’t know. Who?”

“Sue Nye”.

“Of course. Should have known.”

(Sue Nye has worked for Labour leaders since Callaghan. She was gatekeeper to Neil Kinnock and then to Gordon Brown from before the treasury till the last days in Downing Street. She is married to Gavyn Davies, the Goldman Sachs partner who also chaired the BBC).

Other at least interim team Ed Miliband staffers include Jonathan Ashworth (Brown, Harman), Rachel Kinnock (Blair, Brown, Team EM) and Anna Yearley (PLP, Brown, Team EM).

* * * Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Inside | No Comments »

UNCUT: Kevin Meagher looks at the new leader’s in-tray

28/09/2010, 09:23:37 AM

THIS week, of all weeks, Ed Miliband will not find himself short of advice. Whatever his critics, myself among them, have said about his campaign, he has executed his strategy expertly. Quite simply, he intuitively understood the centre of gravity in the modern Labour party far better than any of the other candidates.

His appeal to the Guardian-reading, soft left, public-sector urbanites who comprise so much of the party’s grassroots, was perfectly pitched. These are principled, decent people who can be swayed by pragmatic arguments, as they were (initially) by Tony Blair; but ultimately they retain their original, earnestly held views. They saw many of their cherished beliefs battered and bruised during Labour’s years in office and were grateful to have a candidate to vote for in this contest who actually chimed with how they see the world.

The trouble is that their views are not necessarily the views of the broader electorate. Or, indeed, our lost Labour voters. Both Gordon Brown’s former pollster, David Muir and the Open Left team at Demos have made this point in recent days.

So the balance between idealism and hard-nosed electoral reality needs to be better calibrated. And our new leader will not have long to do so. He has to adapt to a fast-changing political landscape with firmness and quickness or risk being on the back foot from the off. To his right-wing media critics he is already “Red Ed” – a rollback to Labour’s Jurassic period. I am sure we can expect some subtle but firm rebranding in this afternoon’s speech.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Uncut | 2 Comments »

UNBOUND: Tuesday News Review

28/09/2010, 08:24:32 AM

David’s future

David Miliband was given a hero’s welcome yesterday – as he kept the party sweating about his future. The defeated Labour leadership contender received a prolonged standing ovation as he addressed conference for perhaps the last time. David has still not told his younger brother Ed, who narrowly beat him to the top job, if he will serve in his team to fight the ConDems. One close ally said he was agonising about his future – less than 48 hours ahead of tomorrow evening’s deadline for standing in the shadow cabinet elections. The deciding factor could be the effect on his wife, who was in “floods of tears” yesterday at the way her husband had been treated by the party. – The Mirror

David Miliband pulled out of a series of fringe events at Labour’s conference on Monday night after a bruising 48 hours that fed speculation that he was poised to quit frontline politics rather than serve in his younger brother’s shadow cabinet. The guessing game over David Miliband’s future dominated a day in which he gave his party a glimpse of what could have been – with a concession speech that turned into a bravura display of political theatre. – The FT

Alistair Darling urged David Miliband to remain in frontline politics last night, saying he still had a “huge” contribution to make to the Labour Party. The outgoing shadow chancellor disclosed that he had met Mr Miliband over a drink since he was beaten to the Labour leadership by younger brother Ed at the weekend. Mr Darling declined to say who he was backing to take over as shadow chancellor, but lavished praise on David Miliband. “I hope David remains heavily engaged in the Labour Party in whatever way he thinks appropriate and whatever way Ed thinks appropriate,” he told a conference fringe event. “He’s still young and he has a huge amount to give.” – The Press & Journal

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Unbound | No Comments »