The leadership challenge

Political leadership is an incredibly tough needle to thread. It means different things to different people. Many look for the macho swagger of a Blair or a Cameron – the my way or the highway sense that no opposition will be brooked. It’s a simple and effective pose, and probably explains why Cameron continues to out-poll his party.

Journalists like it. It works for the simple interpretations of a complex world. Models and memes are how we make sense of the world so we expect leadership to come in a certain package. Those who filter the world of politics to us through their skills of interpretation are no different.

The past few weeks have seen a crisis in political leadership for a major political party. The Lib Dems internal processes have been found lacking. Where once their higgledy-piggledy democracy was a source of pride to them, now it has once again been exposed as a sham. The will of the members has been easily ignored over policy  issues from the NHS to secret courts. But the same rules so easily ignored over policy have bound the hands of the men (and they are all men) at the top from being able to act on matters of internal discipline. This is a set of rules that has failed in both directions, and a leadership without the clout to do anything about that.

But the Lib Dems are not the only party with leadership issues. Scratch the surface of David Cameron’s old fashioned paternalistic model of leadership and you find it as shallow as he is. He projects the image, and a friendly press compliantly writes up the hologram, but in fact, his party is more undisciplined than it has ever been.

Tory backbenchers know that if they continue to stamp their feet long and loud enough then Cameron will acquiesce to them. So why wouldn’t they stamp their feet? Tory rebellions are frequent and successful and have pushed Cameron into many a contortion of his  original position. Daddy rarely says no for long.

The paternal model is failing largely because it is old fashioned. It doesn’t work with today’s expectations and the loss of automatic deference. The leadership by committee model has failed because there is no one who will ultimately take responsibility for making the tough decisions.

So what of Labour? We – of course – have our own leadership issues. Ed does not look or act like leaders of old and he is suffering in leadership ratings as a result.

The public like it when he is decisive – getting huge spikes when he takes on vested interests such as Murdoch or the energy companies. But the paternalistic model doesn’t sit well with Miliband. Unlike Blair, he has few outriders – and deliberately so. He loathes factionalism (those of us who call ourselves Milibandites do so witout any official sanction) and actively seeks to work with those who oppose and criticise him as often as those most loyal. An admirable ambition, but one that can lead to frustration for those who wish to see him impose a more coherent vision on the party he leads.

From the new quiet approach to PMQs to an astonishingly muscular take on how to use the powers of opposition, Miliband is trying something new. The challenge is maintaining that approach in the face of poor leadership polling and the endless criticism that goes with it.

But Miliband must stick to his guns.

There are lots of theories about how leadership can and should work. But key to any path to good leadership is authenticity. It is also a quality that is essential to persuading the public. Ed will no more convince the world he’s John Wayne than I will. Because we aren’t. So Ed must use the many strengths he has to forge a new vision of what leadership is and can be.

Some of that will be through reshaping what our party is and how it is managed (which is what makes the special conference vital – not the macho dick-swinging test that some are painting it out to be). Some will be through keeping his nerve on the key policies that make up Milibandism – and having the courage to change the British economy for the better for good.

Ed is a leader. He may not fit the traditional model, but neither did many of those who we now believe our memes to be based on. It is changing the rules that makes for progress. But the challenge is balancing the public’s need for authenticity with the desire to see a more simplistic form of strength that doesn’t work for Ed and wouldn’t work for  either Labour or the country. These are testing times, but those are precisely the times when Ed thrives.