The media needs to listen to what Ed Miliband has to say

By Josh Fenton-Glynn

On Saturday the Labour Party elected a new leader using rules the have had in place for the past 17 years. It’s now time for the rest of the country to get to know Edward Samuel Miliband. Sadly coverage from the BBC to the Daily Mail has been unprecedentedly hostile, questioning the fairness of the fight, and character of the winner.

Before writing this post, to check I wasn’t being over sensitive, I decided to take a quick look at how comparable media outlets covered the election of David Cameron, a candidate who came from behind to beat the former favourite in the Conservative leadership election. The Guardian and the Mirror (broadsheet and tabloid generally hostile to Conservatives) both carried fairly matter of fact stories reporting Cameron’s win and background of Cameron with the BBC following a similar line. By contrast over the last two days coverage from the Mail, Telegraph, Times and BBC have all shown a shocking hostility toward Ed Miliband from the language they use to the reports of the contest.

There are two lines of attack that seem to be used by the media. Firstly, that the election was in some way illegitimate and secondly, that he is ‘Red Ed’ in the pocket of ‘union barons’. Both accusations show a lack of the neutrality that one should reasonably be able to expect from the media, and are utter nonsense.

The Legitimacy of the Election

Having supported Manchester United since the age of six, I feel I am a loyal fan. However were I to contend that my team should have beaten Rangers last week because we played better, it would be unreasonable given that the rules of the game had been clearly laid out before the two teams took the field and to win one team must score more goals than the other. The rules of this game (the Labour leadership election) have been in place since 1993 and while there are arguments for changing them those changes would in fact have increased Ed’s margin of victory.

The process has been criticised in two ways: that the unions were too involved and because it used the alternative vote and the electoral collage system.

What is ignored in the coverage of the unions’ role is that these organisations do not act as a block vote, so the idea of shadowy old school union barons is ridiculous – indeed use of phrases like ‘union barons’ belies an inherent prejudice in this coverage – people who vote in the unions section of the ballot are ordinary people who happen to be in trade unions and are often not members of any political party, nurses, cleaners, shop staff, office workers… or put another way, voters. The idea that it is somehow illegitimate for these people – from organisations intrinsically linked to the history of the Labour Party – to have a say on our leader, is frankly unfair. The questioning of their right to be part of this process, along with the wilful misunderstanding of how the system works can be seen in its extreme form in the hostile interview of Ed Miliband’s campaign chair Sadiq Khan by former Times editor Andrew Neil on the Daily Politics.

That Ed Miliband came from behind to win in a close race, points to a vibrant and open debate within the Labour Party and a closely fought contest between able candidates. It was not as the Telegraph would have it, that “the margin of his victory over his brother was so tiny it gave him the opposite of momentum. He had flopped exhausted over the line”.

‘Red Ed’

The Daily Mail, true to form, has taken absurd hysteria to an impressive level in their response to this result, with a front page article that not only brands Ed Miliband ‘Red Ed’ but also misinterprets parts of his victory speech so much as to make it unrecognisable:

“And last night, Ed pleaded with his brother who, embarrassingly, received more votes from Labour MPs and party members, not to quit politics as a result of his shattering defeat.

‘David, I love you so much as a brother and I have so much extra-ordinary respect for the campaign that you ran, the strength and eloquence you have shown,’ he said. ‘We all know how much you have to offer this country in the future.’

Mr Miliband intimated he will find a senior post for Left-winger Diane Abbott who came last in the contest, telling her: ‘You have spoken truths to this party that needed to be said and must continue to be heard.'”

Meanwhile the Times rather disturbingly informs us of ‘Ed’s naked pressing of Labour’s love buttons’ [I think I missed that hustings meeting]. The idea that Ed is on the far left is thoroughly taken apart by A Very Public Sociologist, and if the worst that the Sun can accuse him of is suggesting that bankers should be taxed more, then perhaps they need to look at recent polling suggesting that 77% of people back a 50% tax on earnings over £100,000 while 84% hold bankers responsible for the financial crisis.

We must demand greater neutrality from the media; their sensationalism and attempts to define Ed Miliband before he is able to define himself are not just damaging to the Labour party but also to the political process as a whole. The first questions to David Cameron in the media were not – nor should they have been – about why neither Liam Fox nor Kenneth Clarke had been allowed to stand against him, or about his trip as a young man to apartheid South Africa. The press should give Ed Miliband a similar opportunity to lay out his stall. By all means ask difficult questions, but wait to hear the answers before you make your mind up.