Charles Clarke Is a Very Poor Politician

I’ve just read Charles Clarke’s interview with the Huffington Post and I’m angry. I’m not – however – disappointed or let down. Over the many years of his career in hubris and internecine attacks I’ve come to expect nothing better from Clarke who has been happy to behave as nothing better than an embittered hack  since he was reshuffled out as Home Secretary. Any sense that he was right or had a point was lost in the ferocity of his fire. He turned those who might have agreed with him against him. His persuasion skills are not his strongest suit.

Don’t get me wrong. I think some of Clarke’s criticisms are valid. We do lack a coherent narrative. We do need to offer more than “we’re not the Tories”. Though other areas of his criticism are totally void of all sense. They spring not from a sense of proportional political understanding but from his continued all-consuming hatred of Gordon Brown – and by association, those who worked for him.

But Charles Clarke has been around long enough to know how his remarks about Ed Miliband will be reported. He knows the damage that even the remarks of a has-been like himself will cause. Former Cabinet members predicting an outright Tory majority is neither helpful or numerically literate. Labour are at 38% in the polls today. You wouldn’t know it from Clarke’s doom-mongering, but that’s more than enough for a stable Labour majority. The public may not like Ed much, but that has been factored into our steady lead for so long now that it is clearly already part of their decision making. The Westminster bubble may not be onside, the press may be as hostile as it is possible to be, but the lead we have remains pretty solid.

Translating that to victory on the ground should be the focus of every single Labour member right now. That’s what the members are focused on. The volunteers who give their time and energy week in and week out to make sure that Labour are returned to government where we can make a real difference. Those members deserve better from those whose efforts they have previously elected.

At the next election the country faces a simple choice. We can go for more of this right wing government who will continue to undermine our social contract, our rights at work, the security of our housing and the fabric of our lives and communities.

Or we can go for the Labour offer which looks to deal with all of these issues. Are we defining that as best we could – no. Ed is trying to do some very complicated things in a land where only simple narratives prevail. He has to sharpen up the message so there is a better understanding of the changed economy he wants to bring forth.

But the last thing this means is arguing about the deficit. The difference in deficit reduction plans between Labour and the Conservatives is a couple of years. In economic terms this difference is all but negligible. The real difference lies not in how we change the effects of our broken system but in whether and how we change the system itself. The Tories simply don’t want  to change an economy that works for the few against the many. Ed Miliband does.

That is what the fight for the next election is for. It’s bigger than the hurt pride of a former cabinet member. It’s better than the sloppy comparisons to other former leaders. It’s what matters. If Clarke retains any sense of what it was that brought him into politics in the first place, I hope he can remember that in future.

Emma Burnell is Contributing Editor of LabourList