Milburn urges pro-business approach in run-up to 2015

Alan Milburn, the former Labour Health Secretary, has urged Ed Miliband and Ed Balls to adopt a more pro-business outlook in order to secure victory at the next election.

Milburn, writing in the Financial Times, identified scepticism amongst the business world as one of the biggest barriers to a Labour majority next year, warning that “Labour cannot afford a rerun of the 2010 election campaign, when not a single major corporation was prepared to endorse it.”

Noting that the leadership had been “moving in the right direction” over the past two years, he claimed that appearing more friendly to businesses would not entail a major shift in positioning:

“In no way would such an avowedly pro-business stance be inconsistent with the Eds’ insistence that a hands-off approach to the market is, post-financial crisis, no longer the right way to conduct economic policy. Most people in business know markets need to be managed. The question is how. What they worry about is that the Eds sometimes look as though they may end up throwing the baby out with the bathwater.”

Framing his advice as an electoral strategy, he argued:

“Labour wins a parliamentary majority when it rewards aspiration not just recognises injustice; when it is fair to businesses not just trade unions; and when it is prepared to reform not just to resource the public services. Above all, Labour forms a majority government when focused as much on creating wealth as distributing it.”

Milburn received criticism from Labour figures such as John Prescott and Andy Burnham when he accepted a role advising the Government on social mobility in 2010, but has since used his position to attack Coalition ministers for not doing enough to tackle inequality and poverty.