Tough reading for Miliband amidst party unrest

Last night we reported that John Prescott has used his Sunday Mirror column to complain that Labour are pursuing a “core vote strategy” – but it turns out that’s not the only tough reading for Ed Miliband in today’s paper.

First, there are the polls. A YouGov poll in today’s Sunday Times (£) gives the Tories a two-point lead over, 36% to 34%. While one poll can be brushed aside (as Mark Ferguson explained after YouGov showed a single-point lead on Friday), two in quick succession cannot be ignored. Not a trend, but not an outlier either.

In the Rochester and Strood by-election meanwhile, a Survation poll for the Mail On Sunday suggests that UKIP’s Mark Reckless is heading for victory, with a nine-point lead over the Tories and 15 points clear of Labour. While no one (bar Luke Akehurst) really expected Labour to challenge here, it is a seat that we held (under different boundaries) in 2005, and the 25% Survation show is a drop from our showing there in 2010. Eight months to go, underperforming on 2010 is not good news anywhere.

The Sunday Times story also reports that senior Labour figures are unhappy with the party’s direction of travel. Lord Noon, a major donor, has joined the criticism for the mansion tax policy (criticism being led by London Mayor hopefuls Diane Abbott, David Lammy and Tessa Jowell), describing it as a “hopeless and desperate idea”. Noon said: “The mansion tax is going back to the 1970s.” Noon has donated over £100,000 to the Labour Party in the last year alone, but said that the leadership “really need to buck up”.

Prescott and Noon are not the only unhappy Labour peers. They are joined by Lord Levy, a chief fundraiser to the party under Tony Blair and who recently has been privately celebrated by party sources as being particularly “helpful” to Miliband. He said:

“I want to see a Labour government back in power.

“Do I believe in some of the policies that are going through, like the mansion tax policy? No, I don’t.

“I think that is a policy that is totally inappropriate and I see no validity in that policy whatsoever.

“Do I believe that the party needs to be more close and friendly to business? Yes, I do and I hope that that will happen over this ensuing period.”

The Mail On Sunday report that MP John Mann has said that the polls should act as a “wake-up call” to those at “the top of the party”:

“This highlights the extraordinary level of complacency that permeates the top of the party.”

“It should serve as a massive wake-up call. Ed should get out and mix with real voters to discover what they really care about, and then come up with policies on immigration and the economy which genuinely resonate with the electorate.”

He also said that there was a belief among some that “one more small push” would see Labour “limp over the line to victory”, echoing the “one more heave” critique of John Smith’s leadership in the 1990s.

This comes as part of a growing belief in the existence of a “35% strategy” for Labour, also referenced in Prescott’s article, which aims to get Miliband into Number 10 by focussing on shoring up the party’s core votes and attracting enough disillusioned Lib Dems to beat the Tories. This is being attacked as unambitious.

Patrick Diamond, a former adviser to Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, has also come out to advise against the wisdom of such a strategy, saying it makes Labour look “on the back foot”. He said:

“It is the Conservatives who look confident despite the pressure exerted by Ukip, while it is Labour that appears politically on the back foot.”

“David Cameron has been forced to the Right, but he still appears determined to make a wide national appeal.”

“Key figures in the Labour Party fear that the party is reaching the limits of the 35 per cent strategy, having inexplicably abandoned a One Nation agenda. They worry that the 35 per cent strategy is damaging Labour in the English marginals.”

Those “key figures” may feel vindicated by today’s polling.