Why Ed should listen to a little bit of Tony’s advice

By Mike Ion / @mikeion

“At our best when at our boldest”: the words of one T Blair to Labour’s party conference in 2002 – whatever happened to him? Blair was right of course, as a movement we are at our best when we seek to be radical and bold.

Under both Blair and Brown, Labour governed – despite the cynics who will inevitably argue otherwise – as a centre-left party, not as a centre-right one. Ed Miliband has given every indication that he will continue with a bold, progressive agenda. Labour’s centre-left credentials after 13 years in power are impressive: the introduction of the minimum wage, the abolition of the assisted places scheme, more help for pensioners, removal of the hereditary principle in the Lords, huge investment in the NHS, debt cancellation etc, etc.

What Ed Miliband highlighted throughout his campaign for the leadership was that many of the radical and socially progressive initiatives I have just listed were carried out during Labour’s first term. Post 2001 Labour, on the whole, aspired to be competent but not radical, to be managerial but not inspirational. What sets Ed Miliband apart as a politician is his passionate belief that government must do things with people; he sees political debate in terms of progress versus conservatism and the world not in terms of right and left, but right and wrong. Throughout his superbly judged campaign he spoke about one of the main reasons for people being turned off politics being because all too often political debate seems irrelevant to the reality of their everyday lives. He understands that many ordinary voters feel that they are being manipulated because they are always being asked to make false choices: you’re labelled as either pro-business or pro-unions, pro-growth or pro-environment, for civil liberties or against them, a progressive or a dinosaur.

As Labour gears up for the next election it is clear that Ed Miliband will need to emphasise his and his party’s centre-left credentials and spell out exactly what his ‘fairness’ agenda will mean in terms of outcomes for the British people. If he is to have any chance of turning Labour’s (and his own) fortunes around then he will need to be ‘bold Ed’ not ‘timid Ed’.

Talking about fairness and the need to listen to the ‘squeezed’ middle class could well be fertile ground for a renewed and united Labour Party and make life distinctly uncomfortable for David Cameron and Nick Clegg. Under Cameron, the Tories still believe that the role of government is to concentrate wealth and power in the hands of those who embrace their political, economic, and social views. For these reasons, Cameron is reluctant to get into a debate about the super-rich and what they should or should not contribute via the tax system. According to a study by the Institute for Fiscal Studies the highest-earning 0.1% of the UK population enjoy an average annual income of £780,043. This is around 31 times higher than the national average income of £24,000.

Given the present context, and given Ed’s commitment to fairness and equity, surely a national debate (led by Labour) about whether the very wealthy should contribute a bit more through the tax system would be most welcome. These past few years the public has watched on in horror and disgust at the city traders who deliberately bid down bank shares, bet on the failure of key stock and companies and even – it is suggested – spread false rumours in order to line their own already very deep and very full pockets. If the Tories wish to seek to defend these excesses – in the manner in which, at the opposite end of the scale they opposed the minimum wage and defended poverty pay – then they will find themselves on the wrong side of the argument and further confirm the public’s view that Mr Cameron and his party are on the side of the rich and not the ordinary ‘hard working’ families that he talks about so frequently.

As Ed and the new shadow cabinet begin to define the dividing lines between an increasingly reactionary and ideologically driven coalition and a renewed and re-enthused Labour party he and they should not be afraid of taking a bold and radical approach. Why? Because he has little to lose either personally or politically but both he and the nation have, potentially, a good deal to gain.