Ed Miliband is Labour’s Al Pacino

“Either we heal as a team, or we’re gonna crumble. Inch by inch, play by play. Until we’re finished. We’re in hell right now, gentlemen. Believe me. And, we can stay here, or we can fight our way back into the light. We can climb outta hell… one inch at a time…”

If you’re an Al Pacino fan like me, you’ll recognise that quote as part of Tony D’Amato’s memorable speech in the film Any Given Sunday. The film is about factionalism, and the importance of putting your interests and your ego to one side for the good of the team. After a succession of injuries rule out the Miami Sharks’ star players, the third choice quarterback Willie Beamen is drafted into the side.

When D’Amato demotes Beamen to the bench, his initial reaction is to alienate himself from the rest of the team. The Sharks suffer a dip in form as a consequence. Over time, however, he realises that the interests of the team are more important than his narcissistic pursuit of personal gratification.

Forgive me for drawing parallels between the Miami Sharks and the Labour Party in 2012.

We benefit from being a broad church, let’s be clear about that first of all. But the problem with broad churches is we’re often shouting at each other from across the pews, dealing with internal struggles instead of focusing on our opponents – and we’re only weaker as a consequence. Whilst certain factions of the party have been directing their ire at Ed Balls, Osborne might as well be enjoying another one of his skiing holidays. Has anyone seen him in the national media at all in the last few days? I certainly haven’t. But why does he need to bother when we’re doing his work for him?

Much like D’Amato, Ed Miliband has to reconcile factions within a team that is slowly being torn to shreds by egotism. By speaking at March for the Alternative, he annoyed centrists in the party. Since the announcements made on Saturday, the left – particularly the unions – have voiced their discontent. Blairites are happier, but still not happy. But it would be impossible for Ed to adequately reconcile both sets of views on government spending.

Which is why – when you look beneath the superficial analysis of Ed Balls’ speech – his decision to position the party in the middle of both factions, built around a new supply side agenda, is a political masterstroke. As Rowenna Davis argued earlier, it is “a new agenda that is profoundly exciting”, and it’s something the entire party can get behind. It shifts the debate away from public spending and onto reforms that can be made in the way the economy functions in the first instance. These would include policies such as the living wage, wage transparency and restructuring of the economy through strategic planning.

Whilst the party is divided over abstracts (we simply don’t know what the economic situation is going to be like in 2015), it is imperative that we instead rally around radical ideas that don’t cost money, or aren’t contingent to spending. To paraphrase D’Amato, either we heal as a team, or we die as individual factions.