A good start

By Paul Richards

The Labour Party conference has been a strange experience for everyone concerned. Conference veterans have noticed its shrunken size, the absence of corporate stands and austerity receptions with no food. There are speeches, but no real debates. There are fringe meetings, but little controversy. Labour politics has been in suspended animation, giving Ed some space to build his platform. Ed’s speech yesterday did the job it needed to. It settled the nerves of the people who didn’t vote for him. It took head-on the critics and the idiotic name-calling. It was the first step in a journey of reconnection with the country. There is some way to go.

Ed’s speech was overshadowed by David’s terse exchange with Harriet Harman – clapping the mea culpa on Iraq, when she had voted for war. As I write, we don’t know what the future will hold for David Miliband. Opinion in the bars last night was fiercely divided. Some demanded that he stay in the shadow cabinet as an act of loyalty. Others wanted him out of front-line politics. I hope he makes a decision which works for him, his young family, and the party. Either way, it’s one of those tough decisions without a right answer. David Miliband remains a huge asset to the Labour Party, inside or outside the shadow cabinet. Talking of the shadow cabinet, you can’t lob a stone in the conference bars without hitting one of the candidates. The deadline for nominations is 5.00pm this afternoon, and then we know how big a field our MPs will have to choose from. With just nineteen places, and perhaps 50 candidates, it will be a lottery with some high-profile casualties, and some surprising winners. One of Ed’s first challenges will be shuffling his shadow cabinet into a shape which can take the fight to the Tories. The key role is shadow chancellor – with Ed Balls or Yvette Cooper as the front-runners. Ed’s education speech this lunch-time was a barnstormer – from personal testimony about his stammer, to his excoration of the Gove education plan.

The other Ed did the punishing leader’s round of receptions last night. At the Labour Friends of Israel party he provided a more balanced view of the middle east than he managed in his rather partial remarks in his speech. Delegates were relieved to hear that he has a grip on the issues. He mentioned his own trip to Yad Vashem in Israel a decade ago, where he paid tribute to the Catholic family who gave sanctuary to his mother and her sister during the Holocaust. The Ed Miliband story – from the son of immigrants to leader of the opposition – is one that the public need to hear. It says a lot about the Milibands, and it says a lot about the country they those to settle in. Ed talked about the ‘new generation’ – and he represents a number of firsts. The first Jewish leader of the party; the first one not to be married to the mother of his children; the first born in the Sixties, and the first one younger than me. Like many, I was relieved to hear that the ‘new generation’ is an attitude of mind, not an age profile.

Ed faces a series of pitfalls – his campaign pledge to support the TUC day of action may need to be revisited. His pledge to oppose ‘irresponsible strikes’ raises the question – who decides what’s irresponsible, if there’s been a ballot of union members. Next week, when the BBC unions come out of strike, will Ed be on the picket lines outside Television Centre? It’s a tightrope, and he mustn’t look down.

The biggest challenge – and opportunity – is that the public doesn’t know Ed Miliband. All they know is he beat his brother. They know nothing of his background, his values, his aspirations and his ideals. They don’t know the rhythm of his heartbeat. In coming months, Team Ed must put their man on the road, meeting voters, engaging with those who are angry, listening to the new voices of modern Britain. The party needs a policy review which engages members and supporters (especially the 30,000 new ones), not a Warwick-style stitch-up. We need campaigns which excite and engage people beyond our party boundaries.

I bumped into Ken Livingstone this morning. He reckoned that the ‘uber-Blairites’ (he may have meant me) would either down tools or disengage from the party. He’s wrong. The people who backed Blair are backing Ed. That’s because all of us have a higher duty to the party and to socialism, and we respect the outcomes of elections, no matter how close. A conference that could have been a bloodbath has been a springboard. After a hundred years, maybe the Labour Party is growing up.

Paul Richards’s new book Labour’s Revival is on sale now.