Shortly before Ed Miliband was engulfed in a perfect storm of leaks and speculation about his ability to lead Labour, Shadow Communities Secretary Caroline Flint tweeted her assessment of the last five party leaders. It went: 0-1, 0-1, 0-1, 3-0, 0-1. Translated: only New Labour can win elections.
It was a subtle but revealing put down of her boss. Like the majority of the Shadow Cabinet, Flint wanted David Miliband to be the party leader to carry on the Tony Blair legacy. They do not like what they perceive to be a return to union-focused, old-Labour policies and principles. Moreover, they are fed up with the seemingly endless apologies for the mistakes and failures of past governments and they fear the younger Miliband’s avowed determination to move on from New Labour.
Ed Miliband is a leader under siege from his own troops. “Ed Miliband talks tough to silence critics”, ran the headline in the Financial Times on a spin-trailed piece on a David Cameron-lite speech in which he sought to distance Labour from the undeserving poor with a reminder that those on benefits have a responsibility to be responsible. “We will be a party that rewards contribution, not worklessness…we must once again be the party of the grafters.” There was much else in a balanced speech which attacked the irresponsibility of bankers and the iniquity of wealth distribution (under Labour, as it happens), spoke of the shortage of social housing and rejected the Tory characterisation of those on benefits as “feckless and worthless”. But the main message was this: “Labour – a party founded by hard working people for hard working people – was seen, however unfairly, as the party of those ripping off our society. My party must change.”
Given the plethora of choice targets in the don’t-know-what-we’re doing Government of U-turns and the social pain being inflicted by its economic policies, it might be seen as an odd choice of emphasis. Insiders say he is preparing a similar homily on Labour and the unions, to “clip their wings”. The promise which stirred hopes in many during Ed Miliband’s first conference speech as leader is dissipating.It is amid this atmosphere that some of Ed Miliband’s strongest supporters are beginning to despair, reluctantly shifting towards the view of the unreconstructed Blairites, but for different reasons, that he is not up to the game. Even that he may not make it as leader to the next election.
Ed is already a national parody for being Mr Invisible. That’s unfair to a large extent, but parodies don’t emerge from nowhere and the extent to which it is true has some in the higher reaches of the Labour command deeply worried. It is said, for example, that Ed has barely spoken to the Chief Whip Rosie Winterton for almost two months.He has few, if any, close consiglieres and is said to be increasingly wont to proffer a deaf ear to those who feel it their duty to offer constructive, but unwelcome, advice. He has, according to Shadow Cabinet members, become incapable of making a decision.
Surrounded by an office staff of New Labour partisans, he has yet to appoint a chief of staff to take command of his operation and has apparently no preference in the forthcoming choice of party general secretary. In the absence of any clear overall strategy and direction, the infamous policy review fills a hole which is likely to turn out to be very black indeed for those hoping for a radical change of direction, or rather a return to purpose, for Labour. Rather, where there is any action at all in what by most accounts is an unstructured stroll through a New Labour thesaurus, the outcome of the review is likely to be another challenge to Ed: closer to what he wants to bury than to what he wants to resurrect.
The choreography of a coup, seen in the leaking of the so-called Balls files to the Daily Telegraph, the David Miliband speech that he would have made to The Guardian and the mutterings of serially disloyal MPs on and off the record is an illusion made possible by opportunity rather than central planning. The Ed Balls papers were leaked to destabilise him by a former senior insider who “loathes” the former Schools Secretary and wanted to kibosh his chances of positioning himself favourably amid Ed Miliband’s troubles. And, by happy chance, you damage one Ed and the other is a collateral victim.David Miliband is genuinely pained at suggestions that he might be orchestrating the undermining of his younger brother or that he is lurking in the wings, waiting to see him fail. But he cannot, or has not, stopped his acolytes from leaking speeches or writing commentaries they believe to be to his advantage were there to be a vacancy.
But then Ed doesn’t always help himself. As his office was basking in the aftermath of the most effective political hit on the Government since his election as leader – that unleashed by the Archbishop of Canterbury – a tidal wave of bad news was heading Ed Miliband’s way. (His office had thought of a similar attack on the coalition but decided against it “because people would say ‘it’s only the Labour Party’”.) He had just flunked Prime Minister’s Questions and the leaks were in the pipeline. By the weekend, the tidal wave would be a tsunami. Those asking what the press strategy would be were met with blank faces. The weekend airwaves were devoid of anyone speaking up for Ed. The story – that is, the question over his leadership – was left to run without rebuttal or defence.
There is talk of the need to set up some kind of grand council or star chamber around Ed, big figures, elder statesmen from the party and union leaderships, both to advise and protect but also to allow him to be the politician that is in there somewhere but can’t, or won’t, be let out. But it is, right now, just talk, on private phones at weekends. The pessimistic view is that Ed is finished, that it is only a matter of time.
The local and London mayoral elections next year are pinpointed in some quarters as the testing time. If Labour does badly and Ken Livingstone fails in his bid to take back City Hall, the pressure on Miliband will be intensified. As one Shadow Cabinet member put it: “Ken realises this and he’s says he has never felt a greater weight on his shoulders because Ed’s fate may rest on his. The funny thing is that Ed can’t make up his mind clearly to be seen to support Ken.”
