What are your thoughts?

Posred by Sunny Hundal

Christopher Cook of the FT thinks I’m implying Conservatives are lying when I say Labourites should be careful of who they are publicly ‘worried about’ from the Labour leadership contenders.

That is a misreading of where I’m coming from, and partially in response to Soho Politico, I’ll explain why this is worth explaining.

I’ve said before I think David Miliband is a highly intelligent and capable Labour MP. I just don’t think he should be Labour leader for various reasons.

1. Economic policy

I disagree with David Miliband’s economic plans (put together by Alistair Darling) on three fronts: economicaly, politically and for internal Labour reasons. Economically it advocates cutting far too deeply and quickly, as even Ed Balls has said. It’s the kind of MOR plan that Obama put in place as soon as he came to power – which was neither big enough to actually reduce unemployment quickly, nor small enough to deflect Republican attacks.

Politically – it’s not an easily explainable or different enough plan from the Conservatives. It admits that Labour got it wrong on trying to protect the economy rather than cutting the deficit. This lack of a clear political message over the economy is why Labour lost the last election so badly – people saw Labour admitting they had messed up the economy. [explained in more detail here]

Internally – David Miliband’s plans pits the Labour left (plus Ed Balls and EdM) against David Miliband, and this is not good for party unity. Ed Balls’ plans pretty much unite most of the party. If David M’s plans are accepted – you’ll see unions and other greassroots Labour people frequently campaigning against their own party.

Tories have a reason to like all this – David Miliband accepts their broad economic consensus rather than saying there is an alternative and calling them ‘growth deniers’. Plus, Tories would love to see Labour infighting over the cuts. And lastly, they can then point to DM once he is elected and say: ‘see, he accepts Labour went too far in allowing the debt to get out of hand‘. What does Labour say in response to that?

[All the talk of Darling having an 'escape hatch' in his plans are minutae that will go over the head of most voters and the media. Guys, you think they pay that much attention to these plans?]

2. Progressive majority.

Another reason why I will not be voting for David Miliband, and why I think Tories like him, is because he is deeply centrist. Coming from a lefty like me this may not surprise you. But there’s a broader point here.

The Conservatives are great at finding ways to shift the consensus to the right. That means any centrist has to also keep shifting to the right rather than challenge that and shift the political spectrum back in their favour. I support Ed Miliband because he believes that a progressive majority of independent progressive voters and Labour’s base can win elections.

This is why he hasn’t attacked the Coalition from the right on issues. Contrast that with David Miliband’s campaign team attacking the Coalition from the right on crime (Jack Straw on Ken Clarke) on civil liberties (Alan Johnson saying Labour did nothing wrong) and on defence (cutting Trident is bad etc etc).

Their team genuinely don’t believe that Labour can win voters unless it is right-wing on social issues. Do you honestly think David Miliband’s team after being elected will disavow any of their previous positions on the above or on immigration, given his backers?

3. A shrinking electorate

And lastly – I don’t believe Labour can win an election unless it attracts back the 4 million working class voters it has lost since 1997. I think Ed Miliband will make more of an effort here than David will.

But more importantly, I believe Tories prefer D-Miliband’s centrism here because it means he has to fight for votes from a shrinking electorate which is mostly on the right. The Tories would prefer that poorer voters who don’t like them anyway remain apathetic and disengaged from politics.

Lastly

I’m not hating on David Miliband, just pointing out where I differ from him ideologically. If Ed Miliband goes on to win and then takes the course his brother advocated, I would of course argue against that.

So please don’t see this as an attempt to rubbish DM. I’m sick of all this media briefings against EM already, with him being called ‘Forrest Gump’ or people being told they won’t get jobs if he gets elected. This is not in the same vein.