I never did manage to watch Ed Miliband’s Progress speech this afternoon, as I had hoped; the draw of lazing in baking sunshine with a bottle of Vin Blanc proved too strong. Who’d have thunk it.
However, from my hayfever-encased and sunburn-crusted lack of a vantage point, I can at least pontificate over what i would like to have heard.
We’ve had a lot of discussion here at Better Nation recently over what Scottish Labour’s next steps should be, a situation that I am personally delighted with as Labour’s online presence north of the border was sadly minimal prior to May 5th so it’s nice to have a political balance on the still SNP-heavy MacBlogosphere (and if any Scottish Tories wish to write a guest post, get in touch!)
However, the next steps for Labour in Scotland are probably markedly different to the next steps for Ed Miliband’s still fledgling tenure as Labour leader in London. Fighting cuts from a Westminster perspective is different to fighting them from a Holyrood one.
For me, I guess I joined the Green party in England & Wales partly out of default because, for whatever reason, the Tories and Lib Dems were never viable options, Labour lost its way over the past decade and the SNP in London is more of a ‘fan club’ for me as I believe political party branches should be relevant and linked to their local community. So, basically, I guess I am hoping that Ed Miliband can somehow make my support for the Greens redundant by beating or matching their policies and leveraging the relative size of Labour to tempt me into voting red while I’m living in London. No easy task but not impossible.
The main message that I listen out for is where Ed sits on the ‘Blue Labour’/’Old Labour’ divide. The rich are getting richer while the relative poor are losing jobs and struggling from increased inflation. It’s ok for me as an accountant where job demand always exceeds supply but the shrinking career opportunities for swathes of people is scary and this is against a backdrop of rich people never having had it so good. Â That’s the UK’s problems in a nutshell and it’s not something that Scotland can do too much about with the powers that Holyrood currently has, and it’s not something that the Liberal Democrats can reasonably argue against too vocally while shackled to the tax-cutting Tories.
So all progressive, redistributive eyes are on Red Ed then and a good place to start is the startling fact that the Sunday Times Rich List saw their collective worth increase by 18% in the past year. Given current economic conditions, this is depressing and shocking news. For me (and I am 30 pages into The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist so I know what I’m talking about!), traditional Labour values rule that a person’s job is not really ‘their’ job, a person’s house is not really ‘their’ house and a person’s wealth should also not really be theirs. We are all collectively trying to make it from the cradle to the grave in as healthy, as safe, as comfortable and as happy a state as we can and yet, as advanced a society as we often consider the UK to be, we still have a long, long way to go. It’s Labour’s job, duty even, to usher us all along that path as best it can and there are plenty of areas to start with.
Energy companies making multi-billion pound profits while old people can’t afford to heat their homes, supermarkets making multi-billion pound profits while food prices move dangerously higher every year and oil companies making multi-billion pound profits while the planet continues to change its climate and wreak havoc accordingly. A strong message that companies and individuals alike have to pay their fair share in order to move the UK closer to the Socialist solution is Ed Miliband’s job in my book.
A togetherness and fundamental of equality that transcends Westminster, Holyrood, private/public sector, rich/poor and national borders is the bare minimum benchmark for the Labour leader that I can see and fleshing that out with detailed policy would be great to hear. Higher income taxes for the relative rich and super-rich, a Project Merlin solution with teeth, a reversal of the various tax cutting presented as Osborne’s generous gift to companies, equal and extensive parental leave, a more benevolent foreign policy and bog standard green insulation rollout is on my wishlist, so I look forward to hearing Ed’s (seemingly very well received) speech later.
Anyway, back to the sun and the plonk. It’s not all bad in the UK after all….
#1 by Angus McLellan on May 21, 2011 - 8:38 pm
There’s a transcript of the speech up on Labour View which has one major advantage over any recording: you won’t be needlessly distracted by Ed M’s poor speechifying. Very few people can hope to be a Martin Luther King-class orator, but Miliband has to do better. Even something as elementary as pausing in the right places would be a significant improvement. That way he wouldn’t sound as if he was handed the speech fifteen minutes before he delivered it.
It is not a great speech although it does have some good lines. Not a great deal of substance though, but we can’t make too much of that since Labour is still engaged in its seemingly endless policy review. It also has at one very bad line, so here’s some free advice to Ed’s speech-writers: do not remind voters that the 1980s ever happened; the Tory government before this one was never That Bloody Woman and TINA, it was always and forever Lamont and the ERM, Maastricht and the flapping of white coats, and endless petty scandals.
Must try harder, 3/10.
#2 by Jeff on May 21, 2011 - 10:33 pm
Thanks Angus. That transcript was very useful.
I definitely agree with your points about Ed’s speechifying (I hope that’s a real word cos I like it!). On top of the points you mention, it quickly became quite distracting for Ed to look down, slowly read the next line and then leap to a passionate delivery of what he’d just read. I’m sure Ed had helped prepare the speech and really believed it but it just gave the impression that he was reading those words for the first time.
The other main negative for me, and I think different to your 1980s point, is Labour’s fixation with looking backwards. Ed’s opening lines were ‘How we’re going to win the next election…. 1945, 1964, 1997’ I’m sorry, but I bet loads of people watching on tv had already switched off after those first couple of lines. You can’t rely on past performances to prove you’re a contender in the future. Otherwise Third Lanark would be in the hunt for the SPL next season.
Second last criticism – much of the speech smacked of people leading Labour rather than Labour leading the people. I’ll always be wary of a party that polls its way to progress by trying to satisfy whatever the concerns of the day are rather than just sticking to its principles. I’m referring to the “We were too relaxed about that” stage of the speech.
Last criticism – Ed seems to want to be the party fighting inequality but also the party of middle incomes. It comes across as confusing and he’ll need to clarify his message to both voters. Maybe there’s a way for helping the middle class and reducing the inequality gap to be simultaneous priorities, but I don’t see it.
That said, I did like it and I think it forms an important part of Labour’s renewal. I particularly like the idea that Conservatives are cutting for the sake of cutting but Labour would have a vision for tomorrow and start from that basis. I’m sure we all know someone who is facing job cuts in their field and don’t really know how that field fits into the UK’s future; it really is just a case of cut back x% and we’ll see where we are in 2014. Scary. So Ed has tapped into a real vein of public thought there and I suppose the ball is now in the coalition’s court to prove it actually has a plan beyond cutting a deficit.
No, 3/10 is a bit harsh in my book. I’d give it a solid 7. A lot of it was too wordy and really quite hollow but I have a better idea where Ed is taking Labour and where he sees differences with a coalition Government that, let’s be honest, has had a decent first year and hasn’t given Labour much room for manoeuvre.
#3 by Angus McLellan on May 22, 2011 - 1:14 am
I broadly agree with your criticisms. Just one point I’d raise. At the risk of bringing boring statistics into an emotive issue like income inequality, John Rentoul had a piece yesterday (“Miliband’s Bad History”) which didn’t support the idea that inequality, at least in terms of the Gini coefficient usually used to measure it, has been rising in recent years.
#4 by Ben Achie on May 22, 2011 - 10:24 am
Ed Miliband won’t survive for long – his going has to be part of a fundamental Labour re-think, and they must move on from being dominated by a south-east based elite. As for the Lib-Dems – Clegg (the facile face), Alexander (the supposed “brains”) and Cable (the only element that gives this bunch any personality) will all probably hang on in there for the cash and the kudos, but they will almost cetainly destroy their party in the by-going. AV was not PR, and the House of Lords will not be reformed by parties that happily accept the patronage and entenched privilege that it represents. But maybe meaningful reform down there has to start with the monarchy, beginning with “The Crown-in-Parliament”.
#5 by Richard on May 22, 2011 - 1:57 pm
After Blair/Brown had so spectacularly over-played their hand as to almost bankrupt the country, whoever took over was never going to be a long-term replacement, but a short-term stop-gap while the party at large reorganises and regroups – think Hague, IDS, Ian Gray, Foot/Kinnock etc. They will chew through a few mediocre leaders over the next few years until some new, as yet unknown talent arises.
The party has some hard thinking to do, and decisions to make, both in Scotland and the wider UK but, given that they’ve just been humped in two major elections, time is on their side.