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BBC R4 Today and the squeezed hard-working non-upper class
Friday morning with John Humphrys is not going to be an occasion Ed is going to forget in a hurry, because of an extraordinarily tough interview on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.
Ed Miliband’s opening gambit was talking about aspiration, which has indeed been an enduring theme for Labour, certainly during Tony Blair’s time in the 1990s. John wished to pin down Ed on where he precisely he wishes to lead the country, and specific issues, such as the graduate tax and the inequality gap, were discussed, with regards to deficit reduction and fairness. It may seem like quite a sexy concept, “the squeezed middle” like a tube of toothpaste, but actually even the simplest of analyses provides that it is fraught with problems. For example, what are these pressures “squeezing” the middle? Surely not the State, which the Coalition feels is too big anyway.
The interview can be heard here.
John Humphrys – not Ed Miliband – brought up the discussion topic of the “squeezed middle” on the basis of the article he had written in the Telegraph that morning. However, Ed Miliband clearly ran into trouble in defining the “squeezed middle”, which was very heavily reliant on the definition of the middle class. It was nonsense attempting a definition of the “squeezed middle” without defining the middle class, which was a mistake of Ed, thus giving John Humphrys to give the impression that Ed was on an errant fishing expedition. Even his brother David has alluded to the “squeezed middle”, for example in the the 2010 Keir Hardie memorial lecture tonight in Mountain Ash, South Wales. He provided that,
“To reconceive our notion of fairness. In our concern with meeting peoples’ needs we seemed to sever welfare from desert and this led people to think that their taxes were being wasted, that they were being used. When we said fairness, people thought it was anything but. What emerged as a tribute to solidarity, the welfare state, turned into a bitter division. Many of the ‘hard working families’ we wished to appeal to did not view us as their party. We achieved great things but we did not bring people with us, and our motivation appeared abstract and remote.”
The problem was that the definition that Ed (sort of) provided seemed to be 90% of the general public, but when Labour has previously talked about “progressive universalism”, it really has been talking about the aspiration of non-upper class voters who are hard-working; the word ‘middle’ is far too large, but, then again a group of ‘of non-upper class voters who are hard-working ‘ is equally large. It might be better, once Ed has conducted his review, to outline solutions for select groups of the public, such as students who are disenfranchised from Nick Clegg or elderly voters who are worried about the provision of elderly and social care (for example). Like the II.1 class at Universities, this is too large as to provide an idea which voters can address. The criticism of this is that Ed wishes to be ‘all things to all men’, but it would have been helpful had Ed identified which groups of society he was particularly worried about. Maybe, it’s that Ed Miliband feels he doesn’t wish to dash the aspirations of nearly all of the country. I have blogged before on how Labour has been giving the image of protecting the super-rich, and this is dangerous. Obviously, Ed has to give the definition of the “squeezed middle”, having spoken about it so, and even if he alienates some of the “super rich”, I’m afraid.
At first, the “squeezed middle” started off as a fairly innocent parliamentary joke. The Comprehensive George Review saw George Osborne appearing to be perched on William Hague’s knee. The incident gave Ed a good line about Ken being part of the “squeezed middle”. But Cameron responded well by saying that unlike the Labour leader, Clarke has “bottom”. More seriously, making his debut at the Dispatch Box as Labour leader, Ed asked how it was fair for parents with one salary of £44,000 to lose out while those with two salaries totalling more than £80,000 could keep the benefit. Mr Cameron hit back by accusing Ed of expressing concern for the “squeezed middle” to cover the fact that he had been elected with the support of the trade unions. As it happens, however which you define the “squeezed middle” precisely, the benefit changes, which will affect those paying 40 per cent tax from 2013, mean that a three-child family with a single income of £33,000 after tax will lose £2,500 a year, the equivalent of 6p on the basic rate of income tax.
Ed is right in that the “squeezed middle” has become an emergent theme already in his opposition. Ed has has been leader of Britain’s Labour opposition for about a month now, but already he is identified with a cliché: ‘the squeezed middle’, to whom he promised his party’s support. The phrase has enjoyed several years’ currency on both sides of the Atlantic. But its use by Mr Miliband was followed by chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne’s commitment to remove child benefit from the better paid, and then last week by a report from Lord Browne recommending the uncapping of university tuition fees. Politically, one of the key questions about Lord Browne’s suggestion that tuition fees should be raised is how the middle classes react. Will a rise in fees be seen as another burden on those who work hard, play by the rules and are already bearing more than their fair share of the costs of the state? Both measures, together with looming tax rises, are bound to hurt the middle class, and have prompted a surge of debate about its plight. Rightwing commentators argue that prime minister David Cameron is breaching a cardinal principle of Margaret Thatcher by failing to protect “our people”, the aspirational Tory voters. Ministers respond that there is no chance of reconciling those at the bottom of the pile to spending cuts unless pain is seen to be shared across the social spectrum. They were by no means dismayed by cries of suburban anguish about child benefit curbs.
It is possible that Gavin Kelly at the Resolution Foundation has done a much better job. His broad definition is anyone who is “too poor to be able to benefit from the full range of opportunities provided by private markets, but too rich to qualify for substantial state support.” Even something this vague would have helped Ed. Kelly’s analysis shows what a genuinely important political problem the squeezed middle will be in the years ahead. Earnings are flat, and likely to remain so in real terms, while cost inflation is steep especially for healthcare, energy and insurance. House prices have fallen and interest rates are low, but in Britain a mortgage of three times earnings will not buy a home on the edge of a provincial city for even a relatively high-income family on say, £60,000 a year. Kelly calculates that stagnating pay and the rising cost of living will leave these households losing an average of £720 in 2012. That is even before the impact of cuts to tax credits are taken into account. Those who aren’t in the “squeezed middle” – who aren’t “super-rich” – appear to be doing well, and maybe it’s the case that Ed doesn’t want to alienate them either. More and more companies are opting out of offering employees healthcare or final salary pensions. Britain’s average individual earnings are just over £22,000, a pathetically low figure from which to demand that a citizen pays more bills from his own pocket. But that is how things are going to be
However, Ed is in good company in failing to provide a definition of the “squeezed middle”. David Cameron is faring no better than Barack Obama in the vastly difficult task of explaining to his nation, and especially to the “squeezed middle”, where they are going and what is in it for them. He must reconcile people reared in the belief that hard work and prudence will yield comfortable rewards to the new reality of our societies’ diminishing share of global wealth. Finally, Ed must show that he hasn’t forgotten the working classes. Whilst Labour seems to be engaging people in the middle classes, it is dangerous if it writes off the working class in having a share in Labour’s policy.
This is no time for a psychodrama
One thing that I am sure that the Sky party at my conference was high on was gossip. Reporters such as Nick Robinson, Laura Kuenssberg and Adam Boulton would have been interested in the psychodynamics of the relationship between David Miliband and Ed Miliband. There’s no hiding the fact that the Ed supporters were jubilant. At best, Ed Miliband is ‘Red Ed’, despite the fact that most experienced political journalists converge on the notion that Ed is more right-wing than people first imagine, and likewise David is more left-wing than you would expect. Whatever purported media-zappy ‘rifts’, this is nothing compared to Brown and Blair, and while the idea of a Mandy media seems cute, no pseudo-Machiavellian candidates have emerged from the wings.
I met Audrey outside the conference centre aka Starbucks yesterday. A very nice lady from Kent who’s Labour (and socialist) through-and-through. She had received a setback originally that John O’Donnell was not able to stand, but quickly Her badges on her lapelle though gave away her loyalties, quite possibly.
The sore message for the reporters that we have a strong history in the Unions, that we are proud of. Ed Miliband was backed by his unions, but so were the other candidates. Welcome to the Labour Party sunshine! The thing is Ed and David are likely to wish to destigmatise membership of the Unions, and emphasise how the Unions serve as the important interface between workers and their management. This is a critical issue in modern corporate governance, and anyone who knows the history of this save for the psychodrama headline grabbing antics of Lord Myners, will know that modern English corporate governance introduced non-executive directors for that reason.
Sure, there are members of my party who are jubilant, and really pleased that Ed won. I have previously set out my reasons for doing so. If David Miliband wishes to leave the Shadow Cabinet, that is his decision, and there is no doubt he could get a lucrative job elsewhere, such as in Europe. Others have tweeted to me this is a personal decision that is essentially a personal decision as well as one for our party; it’s up-to-him to decide. Ed Miliband has made his views known, and you can’t say fairer than that.
Meanwhile, Ed Miliband will be seeking to govern the country as well as the Party (and the Unions). As Tim Horton, Research Director for the Fabian Society, has advised, major policy issues await for the rejuvenated Labour Party, in an article “How to win on values”. These issues include immigration, benefit fraud, localism and diversity in public services. However, there is no doubt that Ed will wish to seek out some clues as to his response to the banking crisis, the future of banking regulation, poverty, inequality, and the unions, if his campaign is anything to do by.
Is Labour uniting behind a new leader for an autumn of discontent?
People who dislike Labour love reminding themselves of when Denis Healey had to ‘beg’ to the IMF for a loan to keep Britain afloat. Labour took a long time to shrug off the notion that unions were intrinsically evil, and served to destabilize the effective running of Britain. Britain in the late 1970s couldn’t even to bury the dead.
Unfortunately, in the 2010s, Britain may not be able to look after the living adequately. The over-zealous attitude by the spending review has been observed by many pundits as being rather macabre, and misfiring in a number of critical areas. For example, Iain Duncan-Smith has provided a programme of welfare reform, but has been unable to put a figure to it. In the meantime, many genuine disabled people who indeed aspire to go to work have been terrified by what it all means, by the continuous torrent of mistrust from the Coalition politicians towards the poor and/or the disabled.
We all know where intuitively the autumn of discontent would be likely to happen, but the Unions have now specified that the strikes are going to be due to spending cuts, pay and pensions in the public sector. The tables motioned for the Trades Union Congress have called for co-ordinated action by various unions.
The scale of this is not going to be a joke. The reason for this is many hard-working citizens, especially the low paid, feel embittered. They realize that the state owes them nothing, contrary to popular media, but the issue is that they do not feel responsible for the mess that Britain is in. They are simply not accepting the argument that “there’s no money left”, put forward by Liam Byrne of all people. Instead, they have fully accepted that spending in a recession was necessary to stop the economy going into a complete standstill, and the proof of the success of this policy has already been demonstrated by stable growth figures and a lack of inflation thus far. However, the cuts threaten to lessen investment in both the private and public sector, produce inflation, increase unemployment, and therefore increase substantially the benefit budget.
Unison, Britain’s biggest public sector trade union with 1.3 million members, has called on unions to join a Europe-wide day of action in September. Unite has been hard at work, or non-work, in Manchester. Workers at the Manchester office of one of Britain’s largest finance firms are being balloted for strike action in another outbreak of industrial unrest. Staff at Capita Life and Pensions have begun voting over proposed changes to their pensions, which Unite national officer Rob MacGregor said were a “clear attempt by the company to profit at the expense of our members”. Unite have provided that staff at Capita Life and Pensions will lose thousands of pounds in retirement income if the plans go ahead.
“Our defence must be built on generalised strike action and community resistance,” said the RMT general secretary, Bob Crow, predicting the biggest public mobilisation since the anti-poll tax riots of 1990.
That things have come to a head so early on has caught many by surprise. If Labour elects too supine a leader, who won’t support its major paymasters and adopts a “wait-and-see” approach, Labour will achieve nothing for the poor and/or vulnerable. Many are yearning for a true left-wing agenda with a leader with the courage of his convictions, who won’t come to this with any populist overly right-centrist baggage. Ed Miliband could therefore, as the only electable socialist candidate, be the right man at the right time.
David Cameron, who is likely to be on paternity leave during the TUC conference, has declined an invitation to address the congress. Quelle surprise?
Sunny Hundal's post about the future of the Labour Party
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.
A view point from Timothee Defaramond as to why David Miliband should be leader
Many thanks to Timothee Defamond for the account below of why voters should strongly consider putting David Miliband down as their no.1 choice for the Labour leadership.
There is one thing that David Miliband doesn’t seem to get nearly enough credit for – his radicalism. And yet it is this very radicalism that makes him the right person to take Labour forward, not only to the next election, but beyond that too. David is the candidate with the vision and ideas that can make Labour once again a party sure of purpose and clear about its priorities, a candidate that can give serious meaning to the left in Britain, and go beyond opposing the coalition’s unfair cuts.
One of the cornerstones of the Labour movement is the idea of equality. But what does equality mean for our society today, and why do we seek to achieve it? In many of these speeches David has tackled this head on. At the heart of our belief in equality is that idea that we should all have the ability to lead a life that we can authentically call our own. To achieve this individuals need power – and empowering individuals and communities is what should be at the core of our commitment to reducing inequalities. Furthermore, it means allowing individuals control over the public services they receive. That is the opposite of the top-down Labour state some party members have come to fear. Finally, we need to remember that we all have a stake in the success of the lives of each other, and that we’ll get the best results through cooperation rather than competition. David’s ideas are incredibly powerful, and putting them at the heart of policy making will make Labour the party that wins the next election.
David is also radical in his approach to the party. He promises to transform it to build “a movement not a machine”. For too long we have ignored the grassroots of the party and as a result lost touch with the very people we are representing. David promises to buck this trend by putting the leader of Labour’s councillors in the shadow cabinet. Furthermore, through the Movement for Change, David wants to allow Labour to be more involved in communities through community organising. Over 700 community organisers have already been trained as part of the Movement for Change, and their successes already show that the Labour movement can be effective even when the party is out of power.
All five candidates in this election are strong, and all will have a bearing on the future of the party. A Yougov poll this week showed David as the public’s favourite choice by far to replace David Cameron. Whatever happens to the coalition, we must be ready to persuade the country it is in their interests to vote Labour, and only one candidate can achieve this: David Miliband.
I will vote for David Miliband if we move on from New Labour
I know that the title sounds incredibly petty, but many including the Mirror wish him to become leader, and the Tories apparently terrified for him. I’m seeing Ed at Haverstock Hill School on Sunday in one of his last hustings, but if this is true I will take it seriously.
Dear Shibley,
I respect both Tony and Gordon deeply. But their time has passed. Their names do not appear on the leadership ballots. And now we need to stop their achievements being sidelined and their failings holding us back.
I’m sick and tired of the caricature that this leadership election is a choice between rejecting or retaining New Labour. It does a disservice to all of the candidates and, even worse, a disservice to the thousands of members who’ve been participating in this contest over the last few months and working hard for years.
To those trying to trash our past and those trying to recreate it, I say enough is enough, it is time to move on.
I joined the Labour Party back in 1983 because I believed then, as I do now, that we are stronger when we stand together. And that has never been truer than when applied to our Party.
I believe that this election is about pulling together all the talents of our Party. It’s about teamwork, mutual respect – and a rejection of the tired old Westminster games of closed door briefings, posturing, attack and rebuttal. I want to change the way we do politics.
Because I want to lead a government not a gang, a movement not a machine, where honest debate can be a source of strength, not a sign of weakness.
And we do this for a simple goal – because we want Labour to be the Party that enables hard working people to achieve their aspirations.
That means building a new economy – to drive down unemployment right across Britain. It means ensuring work pays with a living wage. It requires tackling the too wide gap in life chances.
In politics, moments matter. So as your ballot papers land on your doorstep in the next few days, I humbly ask for your vote for Leader of our Party.
If you’re planning to vote for me as your first preference or second preference please let me know by clicking here
Or if you’re still undecided please click here and a member of my team will be in touch
Together we can cast the old play book aside – we can once again reflect the lives, the communities and the best hopes of the British people.
The first 100 days of the Coalition Government has shown their creed – and made our task all the more urgent. There are millions of people who need Labour to win again to deliver them a fair chance in life. And I will not let them down.
I am ready to lead. But at this crucial moment I need your support to make the Labour Party the change Britain needs.
Please vote for me as your first preference.
Thank you,
David Miliband
Yes, foreign policy matters in choosing our next leader
Yesterday’s London Evening Standard had David Miliband as clearly ahead in all senses in the Labour leadership contest. As a member of the Labour Party, and well aware that if he wins, he is likely to win the next election if the Coalition become as unpopular as feared, I am genuinely worried that David Miliband’s reputation has been overinflated. I have found him far from impressive in live hustings, and in fact found his answers rather uninspiring, flat and synthetic.
In his favour, he voted strongly for equal gay rights. That I applaud, but I think we have to make some unpleasant priorities over judgments of people’s voting record. For example, I have had people brand Andy Burnham as anti-gay on account of his strong Catholic conscience. I happen to believe with him firmly on regulation of online media, mental illness and the criminal justice system, and his criticisms of the proposed reforms in the NHS.
There are specific aspects in David Miliband’s voting record that I have problems with. For example, he voted strongly for introducing ID cards. The issue of iD cards, for which Jacqui Smith became the lightning conductor, was one of the many reasons why we lost the General Election. For David Miliband’s information, we did not simply because of ‘lack of connection’ and ‘lost opportunities’ under Gordon Brown. I note that Tony Blair has not been in a rush to indorse David Miliband, knowing that this will be the ‘kiss of death’ for some members of the Labour Party, like me.
David Miliband’s performance at the Foreign Office continues to concern me. For example, he voted very strongly for the Iraq war. OK, each to their own, but, most alarmingly, He voted very strongly against an investigation into the Iraq war. I find is a real problem. For example, Tony Blair’s evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry that toppling Saddam Hussein helped make Britain safe from terrorists was dramatically undermined by the former head of MI5 yesterday. Giving evidence to the same inquiry, Lady Eliza Manningham-Buller revealed that there was such a surge of warnings of home-grown terrorist threats after the invasion of Iraq that MI5 asked for – and got – a 100 per cent increase in its budget. Lady Manningham-Buller, who was director general of MI5 in 2002-07, told the Chilcot panel that MI5 started receiving a “substantially” higher volume of reports that young British Muslims being drawn to al-Qa’ida.
Furthermore, David Cameron’s current visit to Washington is indeed living proof that the Meghari issue is still a problem. David Cameron has in the past called for an independent inquiry into the release of the Lockerbie bomber following claims that the Libyans were told that Gordon Brown did not want Abdelbaset al-Megrahi to die in jail. It is alleged that documents released on the Megrahi affair state that the Foreign Office minister Bill Rammell had told the Libyans early this year that neither Brown nor foreign secretary David Miliband “would want Mr Megrahi to pass away in prison”. The disclosure worryingly appeared to confirm suspicions that the prime minister has not commented on the controversial compassionate release of Megrahi on 20 August because he privately agrees with the Scottish government’s decision.
It only goes from bad to worse. Lord Neuberger MR, head of the judiciary and an extremely well-respected judge, went to my school. However, I have conflict of interest. Britain’s top three judges have provided that MI5 officers have a ‘dubious record when it comes to human rights and coercive techniques’. In issuing the judgment by Master of the Rolls Lord Neuberger, it has been alleged the Appeal Court faced down an unprecedented ‘bullying’ campaign by the Home and Foreign Secretaries demanding that the allegation be withdrawn. In their defence, Alan Johnson and David Miliband have dismissed as ‘ludicrous lies’ suggestions that MI5 had a ‘culture of suppression’ over torture.
It has struck me latterly that I do not really know what David Miliband ‘stands’ for on home affairs. One of the only nuggets of information that I have is that he voted very strongly for introducing foundation hospitals. Foundation hospitals such as Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust? I do not want the next PM to be a ‘single issue politician’, but this criticism can be made equally of Andy Burnham, Ed Balls or Ed Milibamd, if one so wants. However, the issue of Foundation Trusts is not one I would wish Labour to defend to the hilt. To remind you, Stafford had unqualified receptionists being allowed to carry out initial checks of patients in A&E, and staff at the emergency assessment unit switching off heart monitors which they did not properly understand how to use. Furtherrmore, In an attempt to meet the target four-hour A&E waiting time, patients were sometimes “dumped” in a ward without nursing care, an insufficient number of nurses at the hospital, the trust’s management took part in no routine discussion on quality of care.
I would like my colleagues to justify why David Miliband is such a ‘clear frontrunner’ in light of all this baggage we will taking to the 2015 election, or possibly before.
I have now decided who to vote for
There is no doubt in my mind who I’m going to vote for for the next Labour leader, with a view to him becoming Prime Minister of the UK eventually. I have thought about the options extremely carefully after several weeks and I am now very happy with my decision, although it hasn’t be easy.
This may surprise many of you but I will be voting for Andy Burnham no. 1 and Ed Balls no.2
In reaching my discussion, I have completely ignored the following dimensions:
black vs white
male vs female
nu Labour vs Labour
Oxbridge vs not
Blairite vs Brownite
I found these dichotomies extremely unhelpful.
I have also stopped worrying about what the unions think or what Middle England think. I frankly don’t care who they think is the best person to win the election. I don’t want a person to win the election with the wrong policies with the excuse he can ‘work on them’ later.
I also decided to ditch the “What if?” scenarios, such as D Miliband becomes Prime Minister and he wishes to have Jon Cruddas. Such scenarios are unpredictable : take the case of Jon Cruddas. i would actually be extremely delighted if he became Chairman of my party.
The next five years will not so much be concerned with the effects of the cuts, in my opinion, as the destruction of the infrastructure, especially schools and health. However, Labour must acknowledge the attacks on the weakest in society, including the poorest and disabled, and the potential U-turns on education. I take it as given that the anti-Keynesian approach is wrong, and that tax increases for a country that is deleveraging is totally incorrect. I think we need a leader with a proven record in domestic policy issues such as health or education, but who does have a vision for aspirational socialism.
I particularly identify with Andy Burnham because of his recognition of the ageing population and the future problem of dementia, as well as his in depth understanding of the NHS. This is going to be absolutely crucial in the next five years as the Conservative Party denationalise it with introduction of a sufficient number of private elements to make it viable as a commercial competitive identity, not abuse any dominant position in competition law, and make it ideally fit for privatisation. Furthermore, I fully support Andy Burnham in his demand that online media should be regulated. As it happens I believe in free speech and freedom of expression, but I strongly disagree with defamation and incitement to hatred. I feel that the BBC has not demonstrated a sufficient level of public service in this regard, which calls the renewal of its Charter into genuine question. Finally, I support Andy Burnham in his quest to understand the relationship between mental illness and criminal justice system. I happen to know a lot about these two disciplines, and I have found Andy’s words on these topics articulate and sophisticated.
Ed Balls MP impresses me a lot too, as he has put up a passionate argument against Michael Gove’s incompetent handling of school closures, and the untried efficacy of free schools imported from Sweden. David Miliband MP has been deeply unimpressive in hustings I have attended or friends have attended, giving a pale, unimpressive and uninspiring account of issues. I don’t think Labour is as popular as the Tories anyway on foreign policy, and I feel Labour should not play to its weaknesses at this particular time, when a lot of foreign policy issues are coming home to roost, such as Meghari/Blair/BP, alleged torture, the Iraq War, which sadly did occur under David Miliband’s watch. Ed Miliband, while perfectly innocuous, does not have enough depth of understanding in health or education (or a major office of state) to go straight in there at the deep end.
Good luck to all of them however!
I will not be joining Jon this Saturday
Actually, the title of my blog post is supposed to be a pale irony about trumpeting something which is really completely insignificant. For example, Jon Cruddas is now backing Gordon Brown – stop press, he is now backing David Miliband. So courageously, in his latest e-mail to Labour Party members, Jon Cruddas writes
“There is general agreement amongst everyone that Labour has to reconnect with its voters, but what does this mean and how will we achieve it?”
And whose fault is that then? Earlier this year, Jon Cruddas was offering constructive criticism to Gordon Brown in a pleasant way worthy of a badly treated stomach ulcer. So I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the news that Jon Cruddas declared he would not run against the Miliband brothers for the party leadership. Cruddas is seen as seen as influential as a Dagenham MP, a person who has strong union backing, and who finished third in Labour’s 2007 deputy leadership contest previously on Labour’s own “Opportunity Knocks”. People were hoping that this announcement would give David Miliband a clear run at the leadership.
I strongly believe, in fact, that this is profoundly wrong. Jon Cruddas recently described David Miliband’s Keir Hardie Memorial Lecture as “the most important speech by a Labour politician for many years”. The irony is that David Miliband is sure to reward him with a cabinet seat, even though many people did not vote for him in a popular way. Sound familiar?
Actually, the ‘left wing candidate’ with whom I am most familiar, Diane Abbott, is most unlikely to get a look in once Miliband transplants Cruddas into the cabinet. I think that this is grossly unfair to Diane Abbott supporters, but obviously David Miliband cannot make a statement about this in advance of such an event happening.
And of what this lecture? David Miliband said recently of Gordon Brown, “I supported and voted for him. I agreed that we needed greater moral seriousness and less indifference to the excesses of a celebrity-drenched culture. I agreed with him when he said that we needed greater coherence as a government, particularly in relation to child poverty and equality. I agreed with him on the importance of party reform and a meaningful internationalism … I agreed that we needed a civic morality to champion civility when confronting a widespread indifference to others. But it didn’t happen. It was not just more of the same. Far from correcting them, failings – tactics, spin, high-handedness – intensified; and we lost many of our strengths – optimism born of clear strategy, bold plans for change and reform, a compelling articulation of aspiration and hope. We did not succeed in renewing ourselves in office; and the roots of that failure were deep, not recent, about procedure and openness, or lack of it, as much as policy.”
No. With friends like that, who needs enemies? I am certainly not voting for the Miliband-Cruddas dream ticket for the reasons explained. Incidentally, I shall be voting for any one but the Milibands instead.
