Remember when Ed Miliband couldn’t be found anywhere? Now you can barely get away from him. The Labour leader has been conspicuous by his presence over the past week, whether on the airwaves or in graffiti form (see left, a photo taken on London’s South Bank yesterday). And he’s continued that hi-vis trend today, by launching Labour’s local election campaign in Birmingham.
Two things stand out from the speech he gave at that event. The first was his heavy emphasis on the pledges he announced last week: capping railway fares, unfreezing the personal allowance for pensioners, etc. As I blogged at the time, it’s doubtful whether these will actually achieve anything, but they’ll still appeal to Miliband because they are both fiscally cheap and ‘squeezed middle’-friendly. Ever since the Budget his strategy has been to pose — even more so — as a champion for ordinary folk.
And second was the passage on crime. It’s usually left to Yvette Cooper to attack the Tories from the right on policing and prisons and all that — but here Miliband was following where she has led. He talked about a ‘tougher approach to anti social behaviour’ and about ‘keeping frontline police on the streets’. The language was firm throughout. There was nary a hint of hoodie-hugging.
You may think that this is a bit rich coming from Miliband — and you’d be right. The truth is that Labour can’t make many guarantees about ‘frontline police’ numbers themselves, although they’ll rarely admit it. But Miliband will also be aware of another truth: that the politics of police cuts are rather unique. Even Boris has urged the government to have ‘another look’ at police spending. And the Sun has joined him too. As Miliband tries to compound the coalition’s problems, expect him to keep talking tough on crime.
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