Tag Archives | Ed Miliband

Not so vapid response

/ June 11, 2013 / Politics / Permalink

3926498118_0426baaf33_mWhat to say about Ed Miliband’s big speech last week? I’ve been thinking for a few days now and I’ve not come up with anything of great insight that hasn’t already been said elsewhere.

He’s clearly trying to steer a course through some treacherous waters. He’s seeking to reclaim some vestige of fiscal credibility in the face of the continuing political damage being done by the outgoing Chief Secretary’s missive of May 2010. He’s seeking to appease those who feel that our social security system too often offers something for nothing, and offers not enough to those who have dutifully paid in for years.

Those who oppose Labour dismissed the speech as saying nothing very new. Those on his own team felt that the speech was more successful in steered a difficult course (eg here and here). More particularly, it had charted a viable and distinctive way forward. The revival of the contributory principle, rather than the incursions into the principle of universalism, is emphasized.

The emerging thinking on housing – switching the focus from housing benefit to construction – is broadly welcome. The suggestions about local authorities intervening in the private rented sector to suppress rents, and the rather vaguer intimations regarding the revival of rent control – have perhaps been less broadly welcomed, to put it mildly. If there is one thing guaranteed to get a frothing free-marketeer in a lather it is rent control. In part that is because pretty well all microeconomics students are taught rent control is unambiguously bad. Usually in week one of their course. That is the case even though specialist housing economists are rather more circumspect on the point.

Anyway, within the constrained parameters of the debate it seemed to me that Mr Ed did pretty well. Continue Reading →

Share
0 Comments

New housing ideas from One Nation Labour?

/ April 30, 2013 / Housing / Permalink

street scene (2099)Under the heading A One Nation programme with new ideas to begin turning Britain’s economy around yesterday Ed Miliband outlined six bills that would appear in Labour’s alternative Queen’s speech. It is good to see him offering some policy detail, at last, but to what extent are we being offered new ideas?

The focus of the housing component of his statement was the private rented sector, which in one sense is new. The idea that the political battle to be fought over housing was going to be fought over private renting is one that would have made no sense a few years ago. And whether it is the biggest problem facing the housing system at the moment, given the broader context of poor affordability for a nation of frustrated aspirant home owners, could be debated.

Leaving that to one side, what did he offer? Continue Reading →

Share
1 Comment

Labour’s travails

/ January 13, 2012 / Politics / Permalink

Labour are clearly in difficulties.

Ed Miliband is being written off by many commentators as awkward and ineffectual. We’ve moved beyond playing the ball to playing the man. He’s too geeky. He lacks gravitas. He talks weird politico-speak. His relatively privileged background means he lacks empathy with real people. His attempts to be more ‘relevant’ and street are ever-so slightly embarrassing. He lacks presence. He’s not sufficiently camera-friendly. He walks oddly. Etc, etc, etc. With this sort of stuff circulating among the chatterati, it’s not surprising that opinion polling suggests the public do not see him has prime ministerial material.

No one could sensibly claim Miliband’s performance so far has been stellar. But these criticisms are, in my view, out of proportion with the problem. And they are, in themselves, a damning indictment of our political culture. Style has become so much more important than substance.

One of the most revealing observations of recent weeks was how widely read the original Beveridge report was by the general public. The idea that an equivalent report would be widely read these days is laughable. You’d be lucky to find members of the general public who’d even heard of its existence.

Leaving style aside, an equally big challenge for Labour is on the substance of its policy agenda. Here the party seems to be in the throes of something rather unpleasant. Continue Reading →

Share
0 Comments

Elsewhere in the multiverse, a leader speaks to his party at New Year

/ December 30, 2011 / Politics / Permalink

You get the sense that the fashion for political party leaders sending New Year messages to supporters and party members isn’t one that will endure. Or at least it probably shouldn’t.

Dan Hodges in the Telegraph yesterday speculated on whether Ed Miliband had been captured by aliens and had his memory washed – it would explain the vagueness of his message and its apparent failure to register anything that happened in 2011. Admittedly, Hodges occupies a peculiar place in relation to the Labour party, but I’ve not seen any comment on Miliband’s effort that was much more enthusiastic than distinctly tepid. One commentator wrote the whole thing off as ‘flatulent’.

Nick Clegg’s message to party members arrived in our email inboxes on Wednesday morning. It seems that several people also found this message somewhat underwhelming, both in delivery and content. Continue Reading →

Share
0 Comments

Penurious progressives

/ September 25, 2011 / Politics / Permalink

There will no doubt be much soul-searching at this week’s Labour party conference. There will no doubt continue to be subtle – and not so subtle – attempts to distance the party from the legacy of the Brown government and its cataclysmic electoral implosion. Without, of course, suggesting that it is therefore inappropriate for some of Brown’s closest associates to be leading the party to a bright new dawn, whether red, blue or purple.

The biggest issue on the agenda is the party’s stance on the economy. How can it regain credibility for its stewardship of the economy, given the perception among much of the electorate – successfully promulgated by the Coalition – that the poor state of the public finances in 2010 was almost entirely attributable to Labour’s uncontrolled largesse with other people’s money? Personally, I don’t buy the narrative that it was all Labour’s fault. But it doesn’t matter whether it is accurate or not. It is the one that the party will have to neutralise if it wants another sniff of power any time soon.

Yet, there is a different way of thinking about the problem. And it perhaps highlights the scale of the challenge the party faces. Continue Reading →

Share
1 Comment

Progressive but not centre-left? Best not to …

/ May 11, 2011 / Politics / Permalink

On Sunday we had an interesting juxtaposition.

The Observer declared that Ed Miliband ‘opens the door to future co-operation with the Liberal Democrats’, contrasting Tory policies with ‘progressive ones’ and inviting Liberal Democrats to join him on the side of progress. This resonates with his previous attempt to appeal to the putative ‘progressive majority’ as the banner under which left-leaning Lib Dems might align with Labour to dislodge the Tories.

While I was reading this Observer piece Nick Clegg was interviewed on Andrew Marr’s show. Lib Dem commentators have already noted that Nick’s performance contained some promising signs of differentiation from the Tories, although some of his comments on health reform were perhaps not quite what some would have hoped for (as noted, for example, on Caron’s Musings here) . Continue Reading →

Share
0 Comments