Thoughts on the New Labour Party Leader - 'Red-Ed' Miliband

The mood in the Conservative camp is one of 'undisguised mirth', as David Crow put it, at the election of Ed Miliband as Leader of the Labour Party.


Leader of the Labour Party
Ed Miliband MP.

On Saturday night, shortly after the result was announced, staff at Conservative headquarters in London were, it is understood, popping open the champagne.  Advisers to Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron think the next election is more winnable than ever.

Much of this relief is understandable. Ed Miliband’s victory has sounded the death knell for New Labour, that election-winning machine which the party had come to hate.  The Conservatives have always said Tony Blair was unbeatable and feared that David Miliband, his last disciple, would also prove a tough opponent. 

Ed Miliband sees no shame in closing the door on the Blairite past, and everything it stood for.

"The era of New Labour has passed, a new generation has taken over."

Were the word used yesterday, in his first major interview since winning the crown, with the BBC's Andrew Marr.

There is nothing 'new' however, about the team that now leads Labour.  Ken Livingstone is not only the party’s mayoral candidate, but also topped the poll in the race to sit on the party's governing body - the National Executive Committee.  Lord Kinnock, red-flag bearer for the left wing, was one of Ed Miliband’s most vocal supporters.  Despite Blair’s attempts to consign them to history, the union barons are once again an important voice in the political debate.

Beyond the same old faces.  Gone is the emphasis on social mobility, on reward for hard work and entrepreneurial spirit.  It will be replaced by 'equality', essentially old-fashioned redistribution of wealth. Labour no longer wants to have more pie – it just wants to cut it up more evenly.

The banks will be bashed; the rich will be soaked; the private sector will be banished from public services. This is the manifesto on which Labour will fight the next election.

For Ed Miliband is not the joke that his opponents are trying to portray him as.  No, he is not as good as Blair, few politicians are.  But he is still a credible leader considering recent peers.

Susan Boyle of X-Factor fame
before and after.

He is much better than Neil Kinnock, the 'Welsh windbag' that voters simply would not vote for in 1992 – no matter how much they hated John Major and his completely divided government.  As Gordon Brown’s favourite number cruncher, he is clearly economically literate, unlike Harriet Harman, and will be able to twist facts and figures to attack the government as only a Brownite can.  He is no professional for the media, but his smile is nowhere near as scary as Brown’s, and the transformations that can be managed today, with a little coaching, are staggering - think Susan Boyle.

If he can convince the big trade unions to keep industrial unrest in check, his populist brand of socialism could tap into the banker-bashing zeitgeist.  As could his claim that the deficit can be reduced without much pain.  Voters might say they back tough cuts right now, but it is easy to say that before their impact starts to bite.

Worst of all for David Cameron is that Ed Miliband is a relative unknown – both in politics and public.  A fresh face gives him an enormous advantage - which his brother, David Miliband, would not have had

Young Lincolnshire Tory Set Sights on National Prize

Mr. Simon Cavalier-Jones, Deputy Chairman of Conservative Future Lincolnshire was speaking at an important Conservative Future - the youth movement of the Conservative Party - Area Meeting last night in Leeds. Mr. Cavalier-Jones who is also a Deputy Regional Chairman for the organisation declared his intention to run for the National Chairmanship of Conservative Future (CF). He gave a speech setting out his plans for CF and then asking for the endorsement Yorkshire CF. In terms of regions Yorkshire, like Lincolnshire, is one the biggest, crucially it is also one of the most active. Any candidate with their support has to be a runner in this election.


Politial blogger Tory Bear reported that:

"East Midlands CF have already endorsed his candidacy, so we're looking at the prospect of a Northern power base Not much is known about Cavalier-Jones, except that he is 25 and works in consultancy. He worked across the East Midlands on the target seat campaign during the elections. He is certainly looking like the outside candidate and is said to have a fair bit of cash behind his bid."

However in another leadership race Labour Leadership contender David Miliband MP was left red-faced on Thursday night after being snapped meeting a contender running to be National Chair of the Tory Youth movement. The front-runner for the Labour Party's Leadership mistook Mr. Cavalier-Jones as a Labour Party chief in an embarrassing mix-up, London Spin exclusively revealed.


Mr. Cavalier-Jones is reported to have said:

"Mr. Milliband was not best pleased when I told him I was standing for Conservative Future chair and then ran away, I thanked him for attending my Campaign launch but make it clear his attendance was not necessary."

GE2010: General Election Summary Day #4

The big freeze became the big news story of the day virtually wiping out election stories. None of the parties launched big new initiatives, wisely deciding that any election initiatives would be buried in a snowdrift of weather stories.

David Miliband MP, The Foreign Secretary, was almost as much a loser from the SnowStorm Plot as Brown. Andrew Grice noted that the Foreign Secretary had sat on the fence during all three botched coup attempts against Brown 'and fallen off'. David Miliband's hesitation, yesterday, will have appealed to neither the loyalists nor the insurrectionists. As One Blogger put it:

"He ended up looking both tame and disloyal at the same time."

Mr. Miliband was, not of course, the only Cabinet minister to give a grudging endorsement of Brown. Iain Martin speculated that Darling even asked Brown to consider quitting. Andrew Neil concludes that the legacy of the SnowStorm Plot will be the "half-hearted" support that the PM enjoys from his Cabinet. Read my summary of events today here.

The Sun has fresh figures from YouGov in this morning's edition and show a shift back towards the Conservatives. The topline figures with changes from yesterday’s poll prior to the SnowStorm Plot are Conservative 42% (up 2 points) Labour 30% (down 1 point) Liberal Democrats 16%(down 1 point). The exact timings of the poll were between 4:00pm Wednesday and 12:00noon yesterday. Sample size was 2,832.

In Lincoln the Lincolnshire Echo published their first 'Question Time' article with Liberal Democrat Prospective Parliamentary Candidate, Cllr. Reg Shore (more here).

Janet Daley of The Daily Telegraph despite the chilly weather seems to be warming to the Conservative Party Leader, David Cameron MP. ConservativeHome summarised the Mr. Cameron's BBC Radio 4 Today Programme interview here. Janet Daley enjoyed his willingness to apologise for his marriage policy gaffe. She thought he has been coming out of his PR man years and becoming himself:

"Admitting that he had simply screwed up earlier in the week with his unintentionally ambiguous wording on the marriage question, he sounded as
engagingly frank as he generally does in private conversation."

There have been a stream of anti-Hilton stories in recent days (another one last night) and it was rumoured by Tim Montgomerie to be 'coming from within the Conservative machine'. Mr. Steve Hilton has been vital in broadening the Conservative Party's appeal.

And finally, spotted on Gray's Inn Road, London; a defaced Tory poster spotted byVirtual Economics.