Has Ed Miliband smelt the coffee?

5 August 2010

Ed Miliband has responded to the results of a poll that Demos commissioned from YouGov to undertake to understand the outcome of the general election.

The poll shows that Labour’s brand is in toxic territory. Labour’s next leader is going to inherit a party that is seen by voters as “out of touch” and represents “the past” rather than the future.

Ed Miliband told the Independent:

“This poll should leave Labour Party members in no doubt that we must change if we are to win again. We need a commitment to change in our policies, change in our Party and movement, and change in the way we do politics. While we achieved a huge amount after 1997, the New Labour formula has had its day with the public, and we need to move on.”

It’s encouraging to see such a positive response to such disappointing poll findings. Throughout the leadership election, the man who coordinated Labour’s manifesto, has been striking in his willingness to accept the defeat and rethink Labour’s previously held policies and positions. He has been consistent in his critique of political tribalism and technocratic language.

After the Tory defeat in the 2005 General Election, Michael Ashcroft published an analysis called ‘Smell the coffee: a wake up call for the Conservative Party’. He argued that: “The Conservative Party’s problem is its brand. Conservatives loath being told this but it is an inescapable fact.” The fact that Ed Miliband has accepted Labour’s brand problem so quickly is encouraging.

Earlier this week, Ed Balls wrote in the Times that Labour’s next leader needs to be “both radical and credible”. He’s right. There is no question that his rejection of Brown and Darling’s plan to halve the deficit is “radical”, but is it “credible”? It’s impossible to say because he has not put a number on what he calls “a more sensible timetable for deficit reduction”.

Yesterday’s editorial in the Times complained that David Miliband risked damaging his prospects of emerging as “a serious figure capable of stewarding Britain in challenging economic times” because he has been radical on tax rises but not credible on spending. They have a point but it’s unfair to pick David Miliband out for special scrutiny. Being credible on deficit reduction and radical on new policy are minimum requirements for Labour’s next leader.

Whoever wins is going to need to rebrand the party to reinforce their new policy agenda and signal a clean break from Labour’s past. Most of all, Labour’s new leader needs to show they have listened to disaffected voters, not just party members.

Spending four months doing more than fifty husting events, primarily of party members, is not the best context in which to be drafting the “speech of your life”. But between winning the leadership on Saturday 25 September and delivering the leaders speech at conference on Tuesday, Labour’s new leader is going to need to change gear and give an image defining speech.

For many voters, Labour’s leadership election has barely registered in their consciousness. The clips on the evening news on Tuesday night at conference and the headlines in the newspapers on Wednesday morning are the crucial first test of whether Labour’s new leader has “smelt the coffee”.

Richard Darlington is Head of the Open Left project at Demos

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