Why I'm backing Ed Miliband

He may be less well known now, but within a short space of time as leader Ed Miliband would be able to win back the voters we lost after 1997 and set a course for the future to deal with the problems the UK faces

For the first time in sixteen years, Labour party members are voting for a new leader. Since the election membership has increased by tens of thousands. In my own constituency of Leeds West, our membership has increased by a third in that time, and from talking to new and old members alike, I know that people are excited by this opportunity. In electing a new leader we want someone who can inspire and lead - not just the party but beyond that - building a new coalition so that we can govern again. Our new leader will, I hope, be our next prime minister.

My starting point when thinking about who to support in the leadership contest is to ask who best can help us win back the five million voters who we have lost since 2001 - who can build a coalition based on our values to ensure that our new leader is the next prime minister. At the centre of New Labour's electoral strategy was the idea that we needed to appeal to the centre ground. A range of policies which gave us three terms of Labour government focused on improving public services by offering choice while providing economic stability and strong growth. These policies were undoubtedly a success - pensioners and children lifted out of poverty, schools and hospitals rebuilt and more people in work. But in and of themselves they were not enough to hold together the coalition of voters that originally powered us to victory, while the promise of an end of the economic cycle has been blown out of the water by the global financial crisis.

Since 2001 we have lost voters across our support base. On Iraq, tuition fees, the recession and a wider feeling that we were no longer on the side of decent, hardworking people - we lost support. People struggling to get by on modest and middle incomes, often in unsecure jobs, benefitted hugely from New Labour policies, like the national minimum wage, working families' tax credits, falling crime and investment in new schools and hospitals. But despite this, at the general election, they did not feel that we were on their side or that we spoke their language.

Of all the candidates, I believe that Ed Miliband is the best placed to develop both a set of policies and a political mood that will appeal and reach out to people. Most of all I believe that Ed can provide leadership built on our core values of fairness, equality and social justice. While Ed is not the most well known of the candidates now, he has the personality and human touch to get through to the wider voting public as he takes on a role that substantially raises his profile, just as David's popularity has increased as a result of the broader exposure to the public that he has enjoyed as a successful foreign secretary.

Over the last week or so, there have been a flurry of articles and blogposts which have argued that if we choose Ed Miliband as our next leader, the party will be retreating into its comfort zone. The argument continues that Ed is seeking to win the election by pandering to the left, in a kind of Faustian pact, which will deliver him the leadership of the party, but make it impossible to gain the credibility with the wider electorate that is needed to win the election. At the same time it has been posited that David Miliband has a higher public profile and greater experience which makes him the only candidate to meet the criteria of ‘prime minister in waiting'.

But those who reject Ed Miliband's candidature on the grounds that he is ‘not a prime minister in waiting' should cast their mind back to the summer of 2007. At the time Gordon Brown was seen as the only credible ‘prime minister in waiting' while David Miliband was environment secretary with just 13 months' experience in the cabinet and little name recognition among the wider public.

Moreover, the contention that there is just one person capable of providing leadership is wrong. We are fortunate to have a range of good candidates, and an approach which claims there is just one person able to lead us is disingenuous and undermines the Labour team. Whoever wins the election will need to build a team around them - and all the leadership candidates will contribute to our future agenda. David Miliband would be an excellent leader, but I believe Ed Miliband would offer something more and has the ability to build and lead a new winning coalition as New Labour did so successfully in 1997 and 2001.

During hustings debates, Ed has led the way in confronting our failings and weaknesses. This is of critical importance, because while we must be proud of our achievements in government, we must be honest about the things we got wrong if we are to successfully renew. Despite huge achievements, the policies and rhetoric of the original New Labour project have been tested to destruction and found wanting. We must build a new coalition for the economic, social and environmental challenges we face. This requires fresh thinking and a willingness to change and adapt.

Ed Miliband is already ahead of the game in developing ideas to build this coalition. You can see this in the policy agenda he is developing as part of his leadership campaign. Campaigning for companies to adopt a living wage to lift workers and their families out of poverty - and for local and central government to pay a living wage too. Supporting better legal protection for workers employed in temporary jobs and by employment agencies as well pursuing policies to support manufacturing and new industries to re-balance the economy away from financial services. Improving the regulation of the banks, particularly around the excessive bonuses being paid out and investing in affordable housing, both socially rented and to buy.

These policies will form the basis of Labour's new offer, based on our values but fit for the future. We must not turn our back on the centre ground, we must build a broad appeal again. But we cannot confront the challenges of the future without reference to our values, principles and aspirations for Britain, and this is why I am backing Ed Miliband as leader.

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Ed Miliband's interview given to Progress Magazine will be on the Progress website tomorrow, 28 July 2010. Stay tuned for that, or join Progress to receive our monthly magazine straight to your door - no having to wait for its articles to be published on the website!

Rachel Reeves MP is MP for Leeds West and a former Bank of England economist

27 Jul 2010 14:10

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Comments

• Posted by James Hulme on 27 July 2010, 5:12:45 PM

  Ellie - I've read lots of similar articles on why Ed would be the best leader, none of which have given any specifics on how he would deal with the major political issues of the day, how he would reform the Labour Party and how he would win back lost Labour voters. And here we are again. All you've done here is list a few failures of the past and throw in a couple of policy ideas like the Living Wage, none of which are going to win back Labour voters who went Tory in 2010. It's not good enough to base your argument on the fact that he "has the personality and human touch" (a dubious statement in any case - see Simon Carr's Sketch in today's Indy). What you've done here is highlight some policy decisions that Labour got wrong, sprinkle on a few generic nouns from the New Labour Book of Political Speeches and tried to shoe-horn Ed in as the answer to all these problems. Where's the vision? Where's the detail? Personally I am going to vote for a candidate that offers a forward look rather than a meditation on the past: that only candidate is David Miliband.

• Posted by Michael Mannion on 27 July 2010, 8:11:48 PM

  You raise important issues, Rachel, about how we must look to our past if we are to move forward and win the next election. Understanding why we lost 5 million voters since 2001 should provide a basis for choosing a leader who will be best positioned to regain that lost support. I see Labour's history since 1997 from three perspectives: Policy, Perception and Propaganda. POLICY: As you rightly point out, Labour implemented a whole raft of policies that greatly benefitted all of us (and you list some of them adding that they took us to victory in 2001 and 2005), yet at the same time we shed voters and MPs. Why? This seems like a contradiction in terms! PERCEPTION: It appears that despite the good Labour were doing, despite the vast improvements in living standards we suffered a steady decline in support. The decline was not sudden but consistently steady, suggesting a long-term disenchantment rather than the consequence of one catastrophic policy (as Iraq is seen by some). In my humble opinion, the reason for the loss of support is a consequence of a sustained, intensive and often virulent attack on Labour from the Right-wing media (of which I include the BBC). I could provide a myriad of examples of anti-Labour sniping that have conned voters into believing the worst of Labour. I offer the following small example: during the weeks leading up to the 2010 election how often were our TV screens filled with reports of soldiers killed in Afghanistan? The painful loss of each serviceman saturated our viewing 24/7. I in no way want to suggest that casualties should not be reported and brought to our attention but there has to be a level above which such excessive reporting becomes indecent. It is as if the media had developed a morbid obsession with death (or was it more a case of attacking Labour, however unscrupulously?). Is it just coincidence that since the coalition came to power casualties are now reported with much less drama and repetition? Where are the embedded reporters in Wootton Bassett? Indeed, how little footage we get from Wootton Bassett despite the spike in fatalities. PROPAGANDA: I believe we lost support mainly because we were incapable of correcting the misperceptions of voters conditioned by a media that has convinced us to jump to instant judgement based on biased and bogoted headlines. If we are to regain our rightful position in government we will need a leader (and PLP) with the strength of character of a "David against Goliath". A leader fully able to stand up to the "slings and arrows" of pernicious reporters that litter the corridors of TV studios and emerge winning viewer support. A leader with charisma wedded to intellect. If we win the propaganda war we win at the next General election (which may be before the 2012 Olympics! Wouldn't that be a suitably victorious party to celebrate?

• Posted by James Hulme on 28 July 2010, 2:31:04 PM

  Apologies, I of course meant Rachel not Ellie. It was late in the day...

• Posted by on 28 July 2010, 2:37:35 PM

  Wonder if Rachel didn't mean David rather than Ed...?!