James Forsyth James Forsyth

Miliband’s message: I’m neither New Labour nor Old Labour

On the hottest weekend of the year, few people would want to be stuck inside in Milton Keynes. But that is where the Labour hierarchy finds itself. For this weekend is the party’s national policy forum.

Ed Miliband’s speech today is meant to try and show that while he has moved on from New Labour he is not old Labour. There will be much talk of how fiscal restraint will have to continue and how Miliband knows there can be no return to the free spending ways of the past. One aide sums the message up as, ‘We know there is no money to spend.’

But it’ll be fascinating to contrast Miliband’s speech today with the one that Tony Blair is giving on Monday to mark the 20th anniversary of his election as Labour leader. They will offer two quite different prospectuses for the centre-left.

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