The Right are fighting Labour in 2005

By Natan Doron / @natandoron

As rightfully pointed out by Mark Ferguson and Michael White, that Brown was preparing to take over the leadership and define himself against Tony Blair is not news. The fact that Ed Balls, as Gordon Brown’s closest political ally and advisor helped with this is not news either. The ruthlessness and strategic detail unveiled need not necessarily harm Balls or Labour. These are important skills for high-calibre politicians.

What jumps out of the leaked memos is that there are certain aims and objectives unearthed that shed light on some of the current challenges facing Ed Miliband today. An extract from late 2005 singled out by the Guardian reads:

“Politics is about shaping the debate as much as winning the debate itself … Recent weeks have shown how far we have moved backwards since the election … The press now write as if Blair is the only person who could ever win Labour any election.”

Judging by the ecstatic reaction of certain members of Labour’s Twittersphere to Tony Blair’s appearance on BBC breakfast yesterday, the battles of 2005 go on. Ed Miliband tweeted this morning that the “Blair/Brown era is over. Labour & country looking to future.”

Ed’s challenge now is to back that up by moving forward his agenda and giving the party, and indeed the country, the Ed Miliband vision for how Labour rebuilds and sets out the optimistic vision for the future of Britain. This is something he increasingly is doing but now has to get better at.

There is an opportunity here for Ed Miliband. As Rowan Williams has demonstrated this week, people are increasingly frustrated with a Conservative government that didn’t win the 2010 election and yet are incoherently doing untold damage to our economy and our society. The right are clearly still obsessed with fighting Labour in 2005; Let them carry on. Ed needs to counter with the vision of Labour 2015.