There is always something quietly devastating about a pronouncement from Lord Mandelson. Today more polls reveal the Labour party is failing to make headway when the Tories are in an almighty flap, and the New Labour peer gave his tight-lipped, politely-delivered prescription on the Marr Show for how Ed Miliband can salvage things:
‘I think that Ed Miliband has two tasks. He has one, to continue building up his economic credibility and confidence people have in Labour’s ability to manage the public finances and people’s own money. He has made a very good start at doing that. Secondly he has got to do something even harder, what he has got to do is to show that he is not simply a business-as-usual politician and that the Labour party is simply going to carry on with exactly the same policies as the Coalition Government, or even the policies of the previous New Labour government. I think he has started well on that course.’
But when asked, for the second time, whether he thought Miliband should sack Ed Balls, Mandelson paused before finally saying that he didn’t think he should.
Was that pause a bit too long? It might be read as rather suggestive given the peer’s attacks on the party’s strategy in recent months. In March he warned that ‘if the Labour party is going to go into the next election and fight it on social justice rather than economic transformation and prosperity, it will be limited in its appeal’ and dismissed Balls’ favourite ‘too far and too fast’ phrase.
Those around Miliband will point out with equal politeness that Lord Mandelson’s advice is always valued, but that Ed is ‘clear about his vision for the party’. Lord Mandelson may well be yesterday’s man. But the big question is whether Labour can build up its economic credibility while making the case for ‘good borrowing’, which the leadership seems to have finally decided it should talk about. And if the party isn’t making headway in the polls in the mid-term, which is supposed to be a time of glorious harvest for opposition parties, how on earth is it going to fare when voters really start thinking about who they want running the country in 2015?
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