Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

David Milliband

David has behaved with grace a dignity in defeat. He joins a long line of political heirs who failed to inherit. Halifax, Butler, Maudling, Healey, Heseltine, Clarke, Portillo. Sometimes history tells us party members or earlier kingmakers were right, sometimes not. We shall have to wait a while for the verdict between Ed and David.

For the moment this blog believes Ed was the right choice for Labour, which politically must shift left and come up with a new deal. The centrists and the New Labour survivors, together with a good many commentators will beg for the retention of the centre. This is pointless, because the centre is lost to a combination of left Tories and right Lib Dems, who together with reluctant followers in coalition have taken that ground. That is no longer where the opportunity for electoral breakthrough lies. It is notable that the Sun has a poll putting labour on 40% today. This is based on a perception the Ed is to the left.

David now has to choose to stay or go. He must go. If he stays we will be back to a Blair/ Brown soap. Maybe the brothers will be as one by their acolytes will not be and a whole media industry will be established to prize them apart, with the less scrupulous making up issues of discord. That will stop any prospect of a Labour government. The choice was for the one or the other. It was never for both.

IMF Approval

The Coalition will feel chuffed with this endorsement from the IMF. It is certainly the case that the IMF is interested in financial outcomes, rather than social ones, so that it may underplay the human consequence of a financil plan. Nevertheless this is good for the Conservatives and their Lib Dem partners and will make life trickier for Labour.

Next week the spotlight falls on the Tory Conference, their first since 1997 in Government. Whatever Ministers say will have more impact that the aspirations expressed this week in Manchester. Much will depend on George Osborne and what he has to say about cuts. The Treasury is in the eye of the coming storm. All else is consequential upon what the Treasury decides. The consequences will even be global, such is the position of the City of London in the financial firmament. For the moment the Chancellor is one of the most powerful men in the world.

Generally the delegates should feel buoyant, but they will not feel as bouyant as when they meet again a year or two down the line, the cuts over, the economy sorted and things once again on the up. They may never get there. But if they do they will have a lot to celebrate. They will need then to be careful, for it is when the economic battle is won and the sacrifices have been made, that the electorate will be in the mood for change and posessed of the confidence to give it a go.