Will Labour boldly go with 'Red Ed'?
Fraser Nelson 2:35pm
David Cameron has dismissed the Labour leadership election as a "Star Trek convention" with policy wonks battling out to go where no spad has gone before. That caricature has some currency (see picture, left). But as he'll know, a deeper choice faces Labour. David Miliband may be the geekier one - playing Spock to Ed's Kirk. You can argue that Ed speaks better human, that he's more plain-speaking. But when he does speak, it's worth listening to what he has to say. And his piece in the Observer makes clear why so many Tories want him to win.
He says he will "make capitalism work for the people" - who has it been working for so far? The government? He proposes to ration corporation tax cuts for companies if they up the minimum wage to £7.60 an hour: an offer some companies would take, if it means more profit. But they'd do that by hiring fewer people. Such a move would render unemployed those people whose skills are worth less than £7.60 an hour. Funny how in the Labour years, so much attention was put on the rate of the minimum wage while no one seemed to care about the youth unemployment which surged even in the middle of a boom.
Ed Miliband proposes a "high pay commission" which implies some kind of maximum wage. I wonder how wealth and job creators, so many of them immigrants, will react to that? Especially now that Britain now has the 4th highest income tax in the world. You can imagine how all of these positions warm the hearts of the 3.5m union members and 165,000 remaining Labour supporters who will have two-thirds of the votes. But the 271 Labour MPs and MEPs will have a bad feeling about this. Some will be old enough to remember the leadership of Michael Foot, a principled and committed socialist, who pleased Labour's core vote but had a different effect on swing voters.
Assuming (as the bookmakers do) that this is a two geek race then which is better for Labour? David Miliband is distinguishing himself by what he hasn't said. He doesn't pretend to have been against the Iraq war (as Ed now does, to sniggers from all the Labour MPs who can't quite remember him saying so at the time). David Miliband has supported the Blair reform agenda, and is the only candidate to have backed Darling's position on the need for cuts. Ed Balls has also been telling the party what it doesn't want to hear in focusing on immigration - and quite right too. Balls is wrong on so many economic issues that it's hard to keep count (his 'advice' led to the credit bubble and consequent crash). But look at the way candidates are behaving. Ed Miliband is telling them what he thinks they want to hear. David Miliband is avoiding the bandwagon.
Now, I'm not going to heap praise on David Miliband. He bottled it over Brown and his most memorable moment as foreign secretary involved pulling out a banana, and his speaking style has a unfortunate soporific effect. But this leadership election is coming down to which path Labour wants to take: a lurch to the left and towards the comfort zone of its remaining members? Or the harder path, which tries to keep more in tune with the mood of an electorate by no means in love with David Cameron? Labour is within striking distance: historically, it would be odd for an opposition with so many seats not to win the next election. But perhaps this hunger for power has been supplanted by a longing for a spot of self-indulgent bash-the-rich stuff. I gather that David Cameron thinks Ed Miliband would be better at opposition - ie, it's easier to denounce cuts at PMQs if your position is one of deficit denial and a desire to jack up the national debt even faster than Brown intended to. But he thinks David Miliband would be better at winning elections, insofar as his leadership victory would suggest Labour is taking a more moderate path and has retained its hunger for power. But there are no heroes in this battle. It's a beauty contest without any beauties.
Now, I'm in Edinburgh today, so let me go a little Scottish here. Labour's problem is simple. As Scott says in Heart of Midlothian: the hour has cometh, but not the man. This leadership contest isn't a question of personality (just as well) but of direction. And to paraphrase Runrig, will Labour take the high road, keep itself together and prepare for power next time? Or does it have altitude sickness after all these years trying to be electable, and feel like a jaunt in the low road with the unions? We have only a few more weeks left of this to find out.
Previous
Jonathan Rolfe
August 29th, 2010 3:24pm Report this commenti don't know much about star trek but isn't it the people in the show (guards, pilots whatever)in the red costumes that ALWAYS die first? is there a nice subtle point here?
TGF UKIP
August 29th, 2010 3:58pm Report this commentSwivel-eyed will win via the Harperson precedent and, following the disintegration of the absurdity, a few by elections and the defection of a few of Dave's Temporary Tories, he'll be in No. 10 before the end of 2012.
Chris
August 29th, 2010 4:12pm Report this comment"David Miliband may be the geekier one - playing Spock to Ed's Kirk."
I think completely the opposite. Ed comes across as too inhuman and geeky.
Chiaroscuro
August 29th, 2010 4:25pm Report this commentI don't really disagree with the thrust of the piece, but I do want to take issue with "historically, it would be odd for an opposition with so many seats not to win the next election". This is a statement that seems to be given a lot of credence at the Coffee House. From a quick look (and feel free to correct me on the numbers, but I'm sure the point still stands) since 1945 there have been ten occasions on which the opposition has won 258 seats or more at an election. On six of those occasions they went on to win the next election and on four occasions they lost. So it seems to me the raw number of seats tells you very little indeed. I find it a bit of a stretch to say that it would be odd for Labour not to win next time around as there are so many other
factors which need to be taken into account.
What is unprecedented since the war is for a party with less than 200 seats to recover to become the largest party at the next election.
PS Kirk wears gold, not red. Should be Balls in the middle and Ed on the left.
The Welsh Jacobite
August 29th, 2010 4:30pm Report this comment"the hour has cometh"
Tut tut. Dost thou not understand basic grammar?
"cometh" is not a past participle.
Why provide a helpful link to Scott's novel if you can't quote him accurately ("The hour's come, but not the man")?
Ed P
August 29th, 2010 4:36pm Report this commentOut of all the talent pool in Labour, the choice comes down to alien vs. predator? Are there no humans left in this once significant political party?
gordon benett
August 29th, 2010 5:06pm Report this commentThey are both the creation of Nick Park don't you know.
Ali C
August 29th, 2010 5:25pm Report this commentI'd say they were all Kling-ons personally.
Paddy
August 29th, 2010 5:46pm Report this commentI can't believe you are taking any of them seriously.
Craig Strachan
August 29th, 2010 5:48pm Report this commentNo way Ed is Kirk. (Unless you mean Ed Balls, who cuts a Shatneresque dash.)
Tiberius
August 29th, 2010 5:48pm Report this commentChiaroscuro is right: even artistic licence won't allow Kirk to be portrayed as a security or engineering trooper dressed in red.
Pity Caroline Flint isn't running. We could have a piccie of her in a red mini-dress (and before anyone says it, Diane Abbott is no Uhura.)
Chris
August 29th, 2010 5:53pm Report this comment@Ali C. Quite. Brown, on the other hand, was the Captain's log. (Not the Chris above, btw.)
Marcher Baron
August 29th, 2010 6:18pm Report this comment"But this leadership election is coming down to which path Labour wants to take: a lurch to the left and towards the comfort zone of its remaining members? Or the harder path, which tries to keep more in tune with the mood of an electorate by no means in love with David Cameron?" Am I the only one to be praying that whoever they elect won't appeal to the country so the rest of us will be spared more Labour ruin in the near future?
Tim W
August 29th, 2010 6:29pm Report this commentElections are most easily won from the centre and that is a fact. Neutral observers can always see what is in a party's interest and clearly Labour are better off with David Miliband's policies.
But in comparison to all 5 candidates, Gordon Brown starts to look quite good. And that says it all really.
Ed Miliband says that "the New Labour modernisers are now the traditionalists, we need to modernise again."
David Miliband says "I don't want to talk about New or Old Labour, I want to talk about Next Labour."
As a Tory they can continue with their 'debate'.
alexsandr
August 29th, 2010 6:46pm Report this commentEd millipede's voice is wierd.
Dimoto
August 29th, 2010 8:29pm Report this commentLame cartoon, Balls looks almost human - Balls is not Balls without that strange smirk/scowl.
Learned nothing, forgotten nothing ... the lot of them. Isn't there anyone interesting in the next generation ?
Luke
August 29th, 2010 8:38pm Report this commentFraser seems blissfully unaware that David also supports a living wage and high pay commission
Yow Min Lye
August 29th, 2010 9:16pm Report this comment"It's life, Jim. But not as we know it".
ollie
August 29th, 2010 11:14pm Report this commentGordon Brown actually looks quite human compared to reggie and ronny miligeek. They are both truly awful men. How do you relaunch your party with two men soiled by the last abberation of a government?
revolution
August 30th, 2010 6:29am Report this commentAny of these stooges would be welcomed by the Tories as Labour leader?
The Mr Bean foreign Milibands will keep Labour out of office for decades but anyone of the other nonentities will finish Labour.
There are probably far better candidates but i must admit i cannot think of one.
Ron Todd
August 30th, 2010 7:14am Report this commentI cannot decide if we would be better of with a compotent Labour leader or not.
The less electable their leader the more chance the Tories will have of getting a second 5 years to sort out the mess,but if Labour does get re-electedwe would want the leader that would do least harm.
Baron
August 30th, 2010 11:24am Report this commentWho leads Labour matters not, what the Tories should be aiming at is the army of Labour’s supporters bought with the taxpayers’ money in the last thirteen years from those on transfer payments to those in the private sector on contract to the State. They and not the Labour leadership may and probably will bring the coalition down at the next count.
laverda
August 30th, 2010 11:40am Report this commentAll candidates are a nightmare for the British public and none will ever be a PM. I'm just loving watching the end of the Labour party. Blair, Brown & Mandelson have finally done what even Maggie couldn't manage...the demise of Labour, thank God.
The coalition shows some promise and hopefully will start doing what the public want and demand.
We must have a referendum on withdrawal from the EU. Politicians from any party who continue this scam which enriches all politicians at the expense of those who pay their wages will pay a large price in hard times. They will be thrown out of power for ever.
Boudicca
August 30th, 2010 11:46am Report this commentI prefer the Dr Who analogy. Miliband senior is a Dalek a robotic automaton with no human credentials whatsoever. Miliband junior is a Cyberman. He has some apparently human features but is actually a cyborg.
Both are the enemy and both ultimately lose - every time.
laverda
August 30th, 2010 11:52am Report this commentAs long as the coalition put an end to postal voting and make all seats the same size and reduce the number of MP's in Scotland who vote on English only matters as well as culling 10% of MP's (mainly the scottish seats, the coalition will have 20 years to sort out the mess Brown made of the UK.
Simon Stephenson
August 30th, 2010 3:22pm Report this commentlaverda : 11.40am
"The coalition shows some promise and hopefully will start doing what the public want and demand."
Great God! If they start doing what the public want and demand, we'll be like Zimbabwe within 5 years.
Simon Mennie
August 30th, 2010 8:25pm Report this commentMeanwhile down in the engine room "Scotty" Darling is shouting "It's nae guid captain ah canny hold her;she canny take much mair".
Major Plonquer 1
August 31st, 2010 2:40am Report this commentThe Star Trek anaology is perfect. It will even allow them to bring back Gordon Brown as the leader of the Klingons, Shah-Tonn D'Rich.
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