Ed Milliband

January 11, 2012 By Malcolm Blair-Robinson

This blog tries to remain impartial in its criticism or praise of party leaders, but it also has a record of giving comfort to those in trouble. We have been recently dismissive of Ed. The time has come to think a little deeper.

There is no doubt that Ed’s performance as a barnstorming leader, harrying the government at every twist and turn, leader of a party bursting with new ideas and an obvious prime minister in waiting, is disappointing. If one stands back to consider carefully, it is perhaps the expectation which is flawed, rather than the performance itself.

It is important to remember that labour suffered a severe electoral defeat. Nevertheless it remains marginally ahead in most of the polls and level pegging in the others. Projections on an immediate general election (which is not going to happen) based on the averages of recent polls give Labour a majority of twenty. Sometimes this slips to leave Labour the largest party. No polling average offers the prospect of the Tories being even the largest party. Labour have done well in by-elections and won a lot of seats in the local elections of 2011, just a year after their electoral disaster. Its membership, alone among the main parties, is on a rising curve. This is not a bad report.

What is much more important is that intellectually Ed realises that Labour’s election defeat in 2010 was merely the symptom of a much bigger crisis. He knows that the entire philosophy of New Labour was too shallow and too opportunist to endure and, worse, that its naive and simplistic economics were the root of an unsustainable boom fuelled by borrowed money, which has led to the biggest bust in modern times. Its employment policy was to create non-jobs out of taxpayers’ money or state borrowing and its addiction to regulations and regulators rather than outcomes contributed to a level of bloated inefficiency and underachievement worse than any previous record.

Before Ed can shine as the barnstorming leader craved by commentators, he first has to re-unite Labour with its roots on the left. Then and only then, will he be able to come forward with a modern interpretation of social capitalism, which will offer both social justice and entrepreneurial opportunity. His latest speeches show that these ideas are formulating in his mind. This is good. Now he needs to be bolder in putting musings to real political music. His first task is to find himself a credible Shadow Chancellor. There can be no real progress until he does that.