Politics: From Red Ed to Steady Eddie

Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband are locked in a political duel, and only one of them can survive.

Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband are locked in a political duel, and only one of them can survive. In the new politics, what helps Clegg hurts Miliband and vice versa. This unusual dynamic makes next week’s by-election in Oldham East and Saddleworth especially important: it is, in effect, the first electoral clash between the two men. The result will determine which leader spends the first part of the year fending off questions about their future.

It is coalition politics that has created this clash between Miliband and Clegg. During the Labour leadership contest, Miliband declared that he couldn’t imagine doing a deal with the Lib Dems after the next election if Clegg were still their leader. Certainly, it is nigh-on impossible to imagine Clegg moving from being Cameron’s deputy to Miliband’s. This means that a Clegg-led Lib Dem party will, whatever is said publicly, always side with the Tories in the event of a hung parliament. So Miliband, to make it to No. 10, must first slay Clegg either by taking his party’s seats or by encouraging the Lib Dems to depose him.

At first glance, Miliband and Clegg appear unlikely enemies. Both are forty-something Oxbridge graduates who have spent their whole professional lives around politics. Neither of them are particularly tribal politicians. They both did graduate work in the United States, are married to successful lawyers and interested in green politics. But there are character differences between them, differences that could prove crucial in their struggle.

The Labour leader’s heroes include Geoffrey Boycott, the cussed Yorkshire and England opening batsmen; he celebrated the end of his GCSEs by going to watch Boycott’s final first-class innings at Lord’s.