2012 must be the year of the shadow cabinet

Ed Miliband didn’t have a great 2011 – despite the image that might have been given in his New Year message. That message gave a clear insight into how the Labour leader sees politics. Ed appears to believe that changing the debate – and shifting public opinion – is a victory. Yet that’s only the case if Labour – and Ed in particular – gets the credit for shifting the debate, is seen to have the answers to the nations problems, and can use those answers to capitalise on the newly reframed/shifted/formed debate. That’s the task for 2012. It’s a huge task that in all honesty hasn’t started yet – perhaps because the debate is yet to be shifted anywhere near as much as the Labour hierarchy would have us believe. The success or failure of that task (or even the acceptance that such a change needs to take place) will define whether or not 2012 is a better year for Labour than 2011, or worse.

Yet it might surprise many readers to note that while Miliband’s performance in 2012 is crucial,  Labour’s success or failure won’t be entirely down to the Labour leader.

Of course leadership is important – crucial even – to winning elections. Any politics geek knows that the “Who do you want to see as PM?” question is at least as important as voting intention. And after all, we live in a world where even the staff of the Labour leader can be big news. Yet the inability of those who Miliband has trusted to take the party’s message on – the shadow cabinet – to cut through means that Miliband often looks stranded, out on a limb when he makes a major speech with no outriders, and precious little in the way of a praetorian guard.

There are some who will argue that it was always thus – the leader is the leader, the frontman, the shop window. The shadow cabinet are the team, the support, the goods in the back of the shop. Yet at present the shop window is only presenting in human form what the stockroom looks like – threadbare and under-prepared. Those in the shadow team who can claim to have given Labour anything of note to shout about this year are few and far between. When it comes to media profile – the only way that the public are ever going to learn who they are – only Miliband and Balls (as well as Tom Watson when it comes to phone hacking) are making any real headway in the media. Research by Hanover Communications released a few days ago showed that much of the shadow cabinet are lagging behind some of the old big beasts who remain (Johnson, Miliband (D), Straw and Brown), as well as some Tory backbenchers, when it comes to media mentions.

Some will no doubt invoke Blair in response. Blair was one hell of a shop window. Except Blair didn’t operate in the relative big beast vacuum that Miliband is forced to. Blair had Brown, Straw, Blunkett and Prescott – Miliband doesn’t yet have enough people in his shadow cabinet who can (or perhaps…will) go out and bat for him – and the party – with that level of gravitas. Thus Miliband is left to drive the debate forward himself, thus making him a lightning rod for dissent within the party. Few members of the shadow cabinet have the level of experience such big beats had, but many in the shadow cabinet aren’t political newcomers or minnows, even though they may act like it. Many have served as government ministers, yet they lack any meaningful media profile. That needs to change. No more carping about the BBC being biased against Labour or how hard it is to get attention from a coalition obsessed media, it’s time for hard graft. That means TV appearances at short notice, local radio, national tours – whatever it takes. Without more members of the shadow cabinet stepping up and forcing their way into the national consciousness, Ed Miliband’s leadership may fall by the wayside, and if he goes – he’ll likely take the anonymous members of his shadow cabinet with him.

John Woodcock was right this morning to call for us all to show a little leadership this year, but John is also smart enough to know that such leadership starts at the top. 2012 must be the year that the shadow cabinet step up, and show there’s something worth looking at behind Ed Miliband after all.