by Sam Fowles

Ed Miliband’s “party of work” rhetoric may have stuck an important blow in the battle with the Conservatives but he’s lost a march in the war.

At first glance last weeks economic policy speeches from the Eds (Balls and Miliband)  set out sensible policy and may even go some way to helping Labour win back our lost “credibility” on the economy. But only at first glance. While the desire to remove Cameron and co from office at the earliest possible opportunity (and by any means short of a military coup) is understandable, it’s mistaken. Miliband’s speech was an attempt to gain economic credibility on Tory terms. And, as any good general knows, you never fight a war on the ground your enemy chooses. Ask anyone who’s invaded Russia.

By buying into the Conservative’s narrative Miliband risks creating a situation where economic credibility only ever means one thing. And, worse, leaving the Conservatives to decide what that thing is. He’s surrendered control of the narrative and that is political suicide, perhaps not for himself, but certainly for his party.

This Conservative party has pursued two distinct and important narratives.

The first is that economic credibility means cutting in the short term. It doesn’t matter that this policy has actually failed in its stated goal of bringing down the deficit, what matters is the electorate believes that cuts = responsibility.

The second narrative is a classic tale of the “internal enemy”. In this case there are two: the unemployed and immigrants. Again, it doesn’t matter if either of these actually are a threat to the “hard working people of Britain”. What matters is that the electorate believes they are and thus turns to their friendly neighborhood Tories for protection. Putting immigrants aside for the moment (and how I wish the press would), by trailing their economic policy by telling us what they’d cut and defining themselves against those “who refuse to work” the Eds have indirectly bolstered both of those Tory narratives.

And the thing about a Tory narrative is: it’s always going to make the Tories look best.

Allowing one side of the political spectrum to dominate the narrative means the political debate becomes about perception rather than truth. Margaret Thatcher is talked of as a model of fiscal responsibility by both the left and right. Yet she squandered billions in North Sea oil revenues on a short term tax cut rather than securing the long term economic strength of the country by investing it.

Why is she not ridiculed for so dramatically putting ideology before country? Because her party told us that cutting spending equals fiscal responsibility and she cut spending. Then they kept telling us the same thing in the face of all contrary evidence and eventually Labour stopped arguing.

The internal enemy narrative is a classic ploy for right wing parties. When we feel threatened by forces within our own community we look to protect ourselves and our families in the short term and thus turn to conservative parties.

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