Thematically speaking, there wasn’t too much in Ed Miliband’s speech that we haven’t
heard before. The middle is still squeezed, the Tories are still undermining the “Promise of Britain”, the bankers are still taking us for fools, and communities still need to be rebuilt.
Even his remarks about benefit dependency bear comparion to those he made in February. But
there was a difference here, and that was his punchiness. The Labour leader may not be the most freewheelin’ orator in town, but the text he delivered was less wonky than usual, more coherent and
spikier. It was even — in parts — memorable.
You do wonder whether Miliband has learnt from the Cameroons. Much will be made of how his speech relied on the Blue Labour stylings of Maurice Glasman. But it also echoed the gospel according to Dave and George. This was the most I’ve ever heard the word “responsibility” outside of a speech by Cameron, and it was used in the same context: responsibility not to the state, as Miliband put it, but to friends, family, neighbours, communities, etc. And then there was Miliband’s Osbornian exhortation that “it isn’t right” for hardworking taxpayers to support benefit claimants who can work. “We must be the party of grafters,” he said, as everyone has said before him.
It wasn’t all about closing down the gaps between Labour and the Tories. though. For the first of his groups who are eschewing their responsibilities — those who can work, but don’t — Miliband softened his rhetoric. For the second — the bankers — he dialled it up to fever pitch, and attacked the government for being too forgiving. He also took some detours into weirder territory, such as fly-tipping and loud music.
The other quality that made this Milispeech stand out from his recent efforts was that it actually contained some specifics. There was still some prevarication about policies that are yet to be confirmed, but at least Miliband gave an idea of what they might look like eventually. On welfare, for intance, he borrowed on the recent work of James Purnell, and said that reward should be tied more adequately to contribution (with, say, housing prioritised for those who return to work). On high pay, he seemed to suggest that he would embarrass companies into limiting their wage packages, rather than specfically legislating to that end. The man was on a roll, by his sparse standards.
But will it work? There is little doubt that clamping down on both bonus and benefit culture has popular appeal. And it even seems to have won Miliband some praise from inside his party, with Frank Field saying that, “it is difficult to overestimate how significant today’s speech is.” Yet this is where the danger of proximity comes into play. It was only a year ago that a Labour government, including Miliband, was in power, building the kind of society that he now claims to shun. Is that long enough for the public to forgive and forget? Will he sincerely develop this new agenda over the next few years? CoffeeHousers, I leave the answers to you.
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