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Today Miliband will make a “brave” speech – but is it brave enough?

June 15, 2012 11:25 pm

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Today Ed Miliband will be in Birmingham to address Labour’s National Policy forum (which we’ll be covering this weekend). In his speech he is expected to stress the challenge that Labour faces in opposition, saying:

“Our task will be to rebuild Britain. To rebuild our economy. To rebuild our society. To rebuild our politics. So that we can rebuild our country to ensure that it works for everyone, and not just a powerful, privileged few.”

However, he’ll also launch a forceful attack on David Cameron – labelling him “tainted” in the wake of recent Leveson evidence. Miliband will say:

“This is a Prime Minister who sent the texts, received the texts, even rode the horse. And what we now know is we have a tainted Prime Minister. Tainted because he stands up for the wrong people. Tainted because he does not stand up to the rich and powerful. Tainted because he cannot be the change this country needs.”

Miliband will also deny that Leveson is a distraction and a media/Westminster bubble issue. I disagree – I think that’s exactly what it is. Not one person has mentioned it to me on the doorstep, but since the lobby are consumed by it so are our MPs. I know some close to Miliband feel the same way, but he appears determined to stick with an issue (media ownership and Murdoch in particular) that has served him well. As he believes (as he’ll argue tomorrow) that old orthodoxies are “crumbling before our eyes”, that’s not surprising.

I hope he’s right, but I fear that he’s not.

This is a brave speech.

That said, there are some internal party issues that look like they are being tackled head on by the leadership. On the failure of the party in many areas to campaign effectively (and vigorously) – something that came to a head post Bradford West – Miliband will say:

“We need a politics rooted in people’s lives through the work of Labour Party members, councillors, and the ordinary men and women of our trade unions. So that we convince the public once again that politicians don’t only care when election times come around but care about changing communities year in, year out.”

He’ll also talk about the problems with the makeup of our PLP (something I wrote about just a few days ago – and something of real importance to the unions), saying:

“We need a politics where politicians look like the constituents they represent. So we should not rest until 50 per cent of our MPs are women, ethnic minorities are properly represented and we deal with one of the most glaring omissions in political representation: the skewing of our politics away from working class representation.”

Just because I like this bit of the speech though, it doesn’t make it any less brave. Vested interests exist as much within this party of ours as they do in the media and business. There are plenty of people who want to keep parliament a cost clique for the political class. And Miliband risks waging a war internally on selections just as unwinnable as his war externally with the media.

Yet although in these two key respects this is a brave speech, it also ducks what will likely be the major talking point for NPF delegates over coffee (and other, stronger, drinks) – plans to “outlaw” Progress. There will be many members of Progress at the NPF. There will be many GMB members (alongside other trade unionists). There will be more than a few delegates who are both. Yet Ed hasn’t spoken out on an issue that has now moved into the mainstream press.

He may not be afforded that luxury for much longer.

As brave as he’s being elsewhere (and whilst I can see quite clearly why he’ll be keen to avoid the issue in the short term), as a former Progress vice-chair – backed by the GMB for leader – he’s being somewhat less brave by not tackling the issue head on.

He’s likely to be asked about it, if not tomorrow, then soon.

I hope he has an answer ready. The answer could well define the next stage of his leadership.

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  • http://www.facebook.com/siobhan.omalley.737 Siobhan O’Malley

    Miliband was part of Progress in the same way that Blair was a member of a trade union – without any real commitment. It was convenient when New Labour was in the ascendancy, but as an advisor to Brown, his allegiances always remained with the Brownite faction who organised through the Smith Institute.

    What matters is what he’s doing now. His attempts to move the party away from the discredited politics of neoliberalism, the ‘privatization is always right’ dogma, towards opposition to New Labour’s illegal wars, has been vociferously opposed all the way and, to some extent, thwarted by the Progress faction. They have briefed against him, attacked him, insulted him by sneeringly describing him as “Red Ed”. Sectarian doesn’t come close to describing Progress’s attitude.

    Look at Dan Hodges or Luke Bozier (now Tory), who campaigned against Ken Livingstone, the LABOUR candidate. Is that acceptable behaviour? Is it right that some senior Progress members think that the role of party staff is to “give the left a good kicking”?

    It’s utterly disgraceful. We won’t win if we don’t support Labour candidates. We won’t win if this influential minority continue to treat ordinary Labour members with contempt.

    • AlanGiles

      I think the “Progress” mindset is captured perfectly in Paul Richards recent article, in that he suggests that only those of us on the left of Labour (or left of him which must be nearly everybody) can be an “extremist”. He doesn’t see that by Purnell, an allegedly “Labour” minister insisting to the then PM Brown that Freud be implemented in toto, even though it was obvious that innocent people would suffer, is also “extreme”. The fact that Purnell was forcing Freud through AFTER Freud had been bought by the Conservatives by a peerage, is even more extraordinary to most Labour supporters, left or centre.

      This is Progress’s biggest fault – anything they disapprove of can be written off to “extremists” – anything they do, however right-wing, should be accepted without question. To question is to mark yourself down as an “extremist”.

      God help us if Richards does become Police commissioner for Brighton, although perhaps if he does it means we will be spared his rancorous articles on LL Every cloud has a silver lining, and all that.

    • Bill Lockhart

       Tell that to Livingstone , who campaigned for an independent against Labour in Tower Hamlets.

  • Daniel Speight

    “We need a politics where politicians look like the constituents
    they represent. So we should not rest until 50 per cent of our MPs are
    women, ethnic minorities are properly represented and we deal with one
    of the most glaring omissions in political representation: the skewing
    of our politics away from working class representation.”

    At last, and Mark some of of us have been saying it for years, not just a few days. The problem seems to be Ed Miliband saying it too late with early selections already in the pipeline probably giving us more clones with very similar backgrounds to himself?

    • Derek

      Excellent comment.

    • jaime taurosangastre candelas

      Labour should try to be the party of the working class, but it cannot be only that, it needs MPs who can become Ministers able to handle all sorts of issues that cannot be defined by reference to the working class.  For instance foreign policy, defence, global climate change, health policy, transport infrastructure, international trade, sustainable agricultural development, and so on.

      There is nothing at all to stop anyone from the working class becoming an expert in any of those areas and many have, but to do so will normally imply working at the higher levels in those areas before entering politics, and that takes them out of the working classes, and possibly gives them different values and ways of thinking.  To get that sort of professionalism and expertise probably involves a degree and quite a number of years working in the sector. Do you want a Foreign Minister with 20 years of experience being a local Councillor, or one with 20 years of experience of international relations and diplomacy? On the other hand, the Minister for Social Security could easily be someone with 20 years of being a local councillor, because he or she has seen the reality of life for people on benefits on the streets of their city.

      To select MPs only based on local and working class credentials would be a mistake. There needs to be a balance.  Perhaps it is too far in one direction at the moment, but to go too far in the opposite direction would be just as wrong if Labour wishes to not only represent the working class but also to look capable and competent to form a Government.

      • Peter Barnard

        @ Jaime,

        “Do you want a Foreign Minister with 20 years experience of being a local councillor ….?”

        The greatest “Foreign Minister” that this country has seen since 1945 left school at 14 and ran a Trade Union for I don’t know how many years. His knowledge of Foreign Affairs must have been pretty minimal.

        I present to you the great Ernest Bevin, whose foreign policy was, “I want to be able to get on a train at Victoria station and go where I damned well like.”

      • Peter Barnard

        @ Jaime,

        “Do you want a Foreign Minister with 20 years experience of being a local councillor ….?”

        The greatest “Foreign Minister” that this country has seen since 1945 left school at 14 and ran a Trade Union for I don’t know how many years. His knowledge of Foreign Affairs must have been pretty minimal.

        I present to you the great Ernest Bevin, whose foreign policy was, “I want to be able to get on a train at Victoria station and go where I damned well like.”

        • jaime taurosangastre candelas

          That’s not entirely right, Peter.  Bevin formed a very developed opinion of foreign policy throughout the 1930s as part of his opposition to the growth of Nazism, and indeed worked closely with the tories.  He did not take on a foreign policy job until 1945, so he had well over a decade of thinking about foreign policy when a senior politician and wartime minister.

          His foreign policy was not always successful.  He was often criticised for being too harsh with other nation’s ministers, particularly the Russians and other communists.  At one meeting, Molotov walked out as he was appalled by Bevin’s rudeness, in another he was accused of anti-semitism towards the new state of Israel by Richard Crossman (there is a long account in his Diaries).  His whole handling of the formation of the new state of Israel was thought to be disastrous by the Israelis, the Palestinians, the Americans and by Dag Hamaskojld, and Lord Mountbatten as the last British Governor of India had little but contempt for Bevin’s inabilities to understand the complex nature of the tribal loyalties.

          • Peter Barnard

            Thanks, Jaime – we’ll have to agree to differ – I don’t want to go into an “off-topic” comment.

  • AlanGiles

    From the Guardian article Mark cites:

    “The row is deeply worrying for party officials because Blair is due to make a speech soon that is being described as his re-entry into British politics.”

    Deja vu: It’s 1990 Mrs Thatcher has  had to leave Downing Street for the last time, because she has upset too many people in her own party. John Major becomes leader and what is the first thing “the lady’s not for turning” says? – She says she will be a back seat driver.

    Major’s problem was that he let her be a back seat driver -w ith the result he had malcontent Thatcherites fouling the footpath for the next 7 years.

    Ed Miliband should not tolerate Blair trying to “re-engage”. His time is past, and I strongly suspect if he is allowed to mince back into the limelight, he will put off more Labour voters than he attracts.

    Ed needs to be firm and remind Blair he is the leader now and that it would be better for everyone if Blair remains history and spends more time with his bank balance.

    • Derek

      You could not be more right.

      I left the party because of Blair and rejoined once I was certain he had gone.

      If he returns in any shape or form I, and I believe many like me, will leave and will oppose as Labour will be representing everything that is fundamentally wrong with society.

      In my mind there is very little difference between Blair and Cameron – both very flawed any egocentric individuals.

      • http://twitter.com/mistyblulabour dave stone

        I re-joined after Ed admitted the Iraq war was a mistake – any party that refuses to recognise disaster when it’s staring us in the face is not fit to govern.

        Blair will probably be encouraging intervention elsewhere – Iran is the big one – partly in the hope that further, and perhaps bigger, mistakes will diminish the public’s memory of his own mistake (he’ll admit the dangers but claim it’s a risk worth taking) and also for geopolitical reasons*.

        *http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/06/04/the_real_reason_to_intervene_in_syria?page=0,0

      • treborc1

        Then again of course it could be that Miliband is not to the left, but he’s new labour and sees Blair as an asset, after all Miliband came up through new labour and Progress. he’s done very little to make me think he’s to the left, he stated he was in the middle, he was not to the left or to the right, well that ridiculous.

        I asked my friend who is the local council shop steward (GMB) what he thought of Miliband and he said a Blair clone who has not got the guts to stand up and be counted, he’s playing the left and the right of the party, not willing to say anything in case it offends one faction.

        He then said to the Unions Labour will be remembered for saying striking for better conditions is wrong and then to prove to the Tories he’s not owned by the Unions he crossed a picket line something even Blair did not do.

        I suspect Blair will be allowed back because Miliband does not have the power to stop him in case Progress and it’s MP’s start to look to remove him.

        The problem is in politics right now is the center ground is getting very crowded with political parties and political leaders all of them look as if they could not run a P*ss up in a brewery if the beer was free.

  • Daniel Speight

    Please excuse my falling into geek-ese. Maybe it’s time that Ed shows both some passion and some long term ‘vision’. Tell us what sort of Britain he would like to see in thirty or forty years times. Isn’t that the ‘blue sky thinking’ that the Tories promised but have failed to deliver.

    Now during the leadership election Ed’s geeks obviously told him he should pick off the votes from the left and the unions. Now this is probably something out of ‘Triangulation’ 101. In all honesty I never have expected him to live up to the ‘Red’ Ed tag. I don’t really even expect him to lay out post-2015 policies, (although it would be good to have just a few). You know I don’t particularly care whether he feels that Progress should be part of the Labour Party or not. It’s enough that this piece of dirty washing is hanging out to air.

    But let’s forget 2015 and instead look at 2050. What sort of Britain do we want our kids and grandkids, or for me great-great grandkids, to be living in? Even if it’s all very general, let Ed talk about a more equal society where the difference in income level between the richest and the poorest has narrowed. Maybe a society where all kids start with the same education opportunities? A society where exploitation in all its nefarious ways is punished? A society where the fruits of technology are shared by all the population so more leisure time is available? In fact let’s have our own ‘big society’ with truly big ideas.
     

  • Derek

    I agree that Leveson will not be a door step issue but it’s use has been that a creditable process has highlighted to the electorate a flawed individual in the shape of Cameron. Our society may be programmed by history, and it confounds my understanding, but so many citizens are willing to put their trust in upper class toffs – perhaps we should blame Downtown Abbey ! I think the public now sees that the circles that Cameron, Osborne and their likes evolve in have no empathy with them.
    However Blair and Mandelson could have been seen in the same light and this is where Ed had to put clear red water between the past and now.
    It is not the GMB that is the issue, it is public services and the public servants who have been singled out and unduly punished for a national debt that in reality was incurred by the private sector. If Ed is going to be brave he needs to admonish the private sector as they have done little to invest in UK Plc of late and are doing little to make employee’s lives better. They are however paying those at the top a great deal of money thus be brave on progressive tax.

    • treborc1

      In the end you vote for the party you think can handle  the country, make your life better, improve the lives of our children, sadly looking at the Tories and labour it’s sad to say none of them could be trusted.

      Labour is in serious debt, so instead of working with Unions to keep them on side , what you had was Miliband crossing a picket line, telling the Union you have to live in the real world of deficit reduction by accepting cuts, while we are seeing the rich get richer the poor get stuffed.

      The fact is like it or not labour now has to seek money from the rich, because it’s lost the workers.

  • anniesec

    Interesting to see six men and one women debating how to make the party look more like voters

  • robertcp

    On Progress, he just needs to tell GMB to stop pratting about.  It is difficult to see how some Blairites differ from Tories or Orange Book Lib Dems but they should not be driven out of the Labour Party.

    • treborc1

      better start looking for a few rich donors then

  • Peter Barnard

    “This is a brave speech.”

    Nonsense. Bravery results from a positive action that places an individual in harm’s way (positive in the sense that someone crossing the road without looking is not brave, but merely foolish ; and harm = risk of physical harm). A politician gassing on a platform is not “brave” – not in my understanding of the word, anyway.

    However, instead of the somewhat vacuous words in black type above in some of the paragraphs, Mr Miliband could upset a few applecarts by insisting that all Labour elected representatives meet a personal target of at least 50 Voter ID contacts a month and a ward target of at least 100 Voter ID contacts a month. For a multi-councillor ward, the ward target would be scaled up proportionately.

    One thing that I noticed – pretty quickly – is that many councillors “forget where they came from” (ie the CLP) and that both co-ordination and communication between councillors and the CLP becomes non-existent. The Local Government Committee for the old district council was a joke.

    In two key wards covering the same part of town, for the local elections, Labour polled 70-75% in the early 2000s ; by 2008, this had gone down to 50% – by far more than the loss of Labour votes nationally. At the local level, this had no adverse effect, but at the General Election in 2010, it was equivalent to a loss of around 1,500 Labour votes – significant in a marginal seat.

    I can only speak for my own constituency.

    • Bill Lockhart

       Entirely concur with your opening  Peter- Miliband is a politician,  Nelson Mandela and Aung Sang Suu Kyi are  brave.

  • Martin

    If Miliband wants to make this a successful speech he has to tackle the GMB-Progress issue head on.

    He should condemn the GMB fully for trying to tear the party apart and purge a party of a faction that it doesn’t agree with.

    We need unity, not division which plays into Tory hands.

    • Daniel Speight

      We need unity, not division…

      And we get this by having a row with the union and supporting a bunch of guys with questionable loyalty. Best just to let it die for now. If it comes to the conference let both sides slug it out in the open.

  • John Dore

    Nothing is Brave in the Westminster bubble. You said ”
    As brave as he’s being elsewhere” I struggling to see that, the policy seems to be say absolutely nothing at the moment. He’s not doing enough to capitalise on what is probably the worst government in Modern British history, the ineptitude is gob-smacking.

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