Miliband, niche electoralism and owning the future

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

Tomorrow, Ed Miliband will give his first major speech since the local election results two weeks ago. He’ll be using the set piece at Progress conference to try and dispel what he and his team believe are myths that have arisen about Labour’s local election performance.

Expect Ed to reinforce his view – stated in the immediate wake of the election results – that the local election formed just the first stage of Labour’s recovery. Winning votes in the South is the next step, and Miliband believes that the “squeezed middle” narrative provides the basis on which to win those votes.

Yet he’ll also argue that we shouldn’t value some voters more highly than others. That – so the argument goes – underestimates the breadth of the coalition we need to form to win the next election. Winning votes from the Tories in the South is crucial, but we should not engage in narrow or niche electoralism – all of these voters are an important part of getting Labour back into power.

Ed’s speech tomorrow will seek to jump start a debate on the future of Britain. Labour needs to “own the future” – like we did when winning in 45, 66 and 97 – if we are going to win again. To this end every member of the shadow cabinet will be asked to give a speech on “The State of Britain”, which may be the first opportunity to see where the party is at in terms of specific policy proposals.

We’ll be covering Ed’s speech tomorrow – and the rest of Progress conference – tomorrow from 10am.