Something I learnt from John McTernan this time is that political strategies tend to think along the lines of ‘whose turn is it to pick on?’
It is easy to forget in the maelstrom of the Leadership election what the issues are which have got Labour into its current misfortunate.
Whilst the Beast of Bolsolver has plumped for David Miliband, on the grounds that David ‘is most likely to beat the Tories’, this for me is a really poor reason. It’s an ever poorer excuse. It is an instrument which has been propagated in the Tory press, including Paul Waugh, and I am really surprised that Dennis Skinner has taken the bait hook-line-and-sinker, much to the joy of David Miliband supporters, and dismay of the solid left wing component of Labour, who feel uneasy about voting for Diane Abbott whom they consider to be an electoral liability.
David Miliband is widely reported to have written a very influential article on the Observer on the future of Labour. This may have gone down well especially with Polly Toynbee, an influential social commentator, but who may have felt subsequently betrayed by the actual direction in which Labour went subsequently in 2009-10. Whatever his intentions, this article destabilised Gordon Brown’s premiership a little, and generated nothing in the way of constructive debate on the issues within Labour. Blairite critics of Brown have been rampant in saying that Blairite policy suggestions were stonewalled, but Blair refused to back Gordon Brown, and indeed many Blairites (and tweeters) were extremely luke warm about Gordon Brown until their subsequent mobilisation for the media in 2010.
Labout lost 4,000 voters between 1997 and 2004, so the Blair government, despite a good start, was not a staggering success. It barely survived 2007, and was a ‘dead man walking’ in reality. Gordon Brown, if one believes the evidence, put too much efforts in briefing against Blair, and was more concerned about his self-promotion than the party. However, Labour has failed on poverty. There’s no point Labour banging on child poverty, crucially important though it is, but Labour failed on adult poverty. It is not even mentioned in Blair’s index to “The Journey”, and we are now left with a culture where debts are being promoted as inevitable. Ed Balls talks about the cuts of Ramsay McDonald leading to the Great Depression in the UK, however most people worry about the actual direction Labour is taking. If one of the Milibands becomes the Leader of my party, as is widely believed, it is quite possible that Ed Balls will become Chancellor. Don’t get me wrong – Ed Balls is extremely formidable as an intellectual, with a First from Keble to match, but he has failed to get his message to the public and the party with the mandate it would need.
So, for me, it is Ed Miliband, who was one of the first to support Brown in the final attempted coup, who is getting my vote. He hasn’t buggered up any leadership challenges so far, he isn’t too left-wing, and he offers genuine leadership abilities in being able to inspire people. The only caveat is that possibly he will probably bring Ed Balls with him, who has been successful in criticising Michael Gove’s “free schools”, is not known to be a massive team player, but who will be able to harvest the massive unpopularity of the cuts. In my humble opinion only.
