Irwin Stelzer, the American economist and Sunday Times columnist, is no friend of the left. Peter Oborne said Mr Stelzer “stands in the same kind of relationship to Rupert Murdoch as Suslov did to Stalin” and Chris Patten admitted: “I wouldn’t sup with Irwin Stelzer if I had a spoon a yard long.” But he has an interesting take on those politicians, such as Peter Mandelson, Caroline Flint and Ben Bradshaw, who want people to sign up to Continuity New Labour. Stelzer writes: “Will Ed Miliband be able to appeal to what his elder brother and Tony Blair like to call the aspirational class? But should he? This is not 1997. The aspirations of that class have become considerably more modest: not a bigger house, but staying in work and avoiding repossession. Call it security. Ed Miliband has not killed New Labour; it died the natural death of the no longer relevant.”
