THINK TANK: Ed Miliband's Labour Party

by The Comment Think Tank

Ed Miliband has re-shuffled the Labour Cabinet, made his opening pitches to the electorate as the new leader, and high-profile members from the old regime have stepped down from the firing line. What of it? THINK TANK has put together an in depth analysis into exactly who the Cabinet really are, what Ed Miliband has been saying, and the implications of various career moves that the old guard of New Labour have taken for the future of the party. Some of it has already been explored in previous articles, but for a full analysis into what we have learnt so far since Ed Miliband's appointment and what we can expect from the party in the near future, this is your one stop shop. To assist, the BBC's rather wonderful transcript and video article of the conference are at hand, as is their article on the composition of Miliband's first cabinet, respectively;

Ed Miliband's Conference Speech

Ed Miliband's Cabinet in Detail

Upon Ed Miliband's victory, THINK TANK premised two different routes that the Labour party could swing down which would keep most of the party in support, and keep the party realistically electable within the boundaries mainstream British politics;

Premise One: Miliband could tighten his relationship with the Unions, give a large portion of top cabinet jobs to left wing thinkers, and present the party to the electorate as a new, pragmatic and respectable, left wing force in politics, just in time for everyone kicking and screaming for benefits and welfare after the Lib-Tory axe slices public spending.

Premise Two: Miliband could hand top jobs to Brown's (and therefore his) old allies and re-brand what some labelled 'Brownite' Labour Policy as his own, with a few personal touches of course. As a key member of Brown's policy unit, Miliband must certainly have a few soft spots for Brownite policy, and for the vision for the party that Brown had.

As such, this analysis is based on categorising every development thus far in Miliband and the Labour Party's recent moves into either one of these categories, according to which one most suits as an ideological explanation for said move.




We begin with his first speech as leader at the Labour Party Conference in Manchester on 28th September. This was really his first public appearance since the leadership race concluded in the same week. His opening line was thus:

"Conference, I stand here today ready to lead: a new generation now leading Labour."

Score one for 'premise one' from a blatant and open swiping away of what had gone before; not just a new generation, but now belonging to 'Labour', note a distinct lack of the word 'new' just before. Surely then, we could bet a mortgage or two on the rest of the speech being a wash out of New Labour, to introduce 'Ed Labour' onto the party. More of the same came;

"We must not blame the electorate for ending up with a government we don't like, we should blame ourselves.We have to understand why people felt they couldn't support us."

"This country faces some tough choices. And so do we. And we need to change.
You remember. We began as restless and radical. Remember the spirit of 1997, but by the end of our time in office we had lost our way."

Gordon Brown and Tony Blair must have been turning in their political graves, doubling the 'premise one' score. However, as we read on, suddenly, Ed Miliband switches from trying to create a new image for him and the party, to systematically running through a lengthy list of New Labour Policy and defending it. The list included: de-regulating the banks and businesses, the changing of Clause 4, and the criminal policy of Brown and Blair. Some of New Labour's most controversial and right wing moves were now apparently being endorsed and defended by the candidate whom all claimed was the 'left wing option' from the front-runners. Score one for 'premise two'. 

This apparent swing towards New Labour didn't stop there; even when criticising some of what New Labour did, his language was not very convincing of a man trying to create his own, fresh, Labour party. What we noticed has been highlighted below within the transcript of his speech:

"too often we seemed casual about them.

Like the idea of locking someone away for 90 days - nearly three months in prison - without charging them with a crime."

"You saw the worst financial crisis in a generation, and I understand your anger that Labour hadn't changed the old ways in the City of deregulation."

"And I understand also that the promise of new politics of 1997 came to look incredibly hollow after the scandal of MPs' expenses. And we came to look like a new establishment in the company we kept, the style of our politics and our remoteness from people."

The fact of the matter is, that there is absolutely no conviction in what Ed Miliband said when he spoke of what many regard as New Labour mistakes. He 'understands', he does not 'agree'. It 'seemed', he does not believe that they 'in fact were'. They 'came to look like', but he feels that in fact they were not. He addressed the flaws that disillusioned voters pointed to as if they were minor concerns that somehow accumulated to create a loss of 5 million votes for the party since Blair first ran in 1997. At least he seemed to make a move away from the New Labour approach of "if you don't like it or agree with it, you're wrong", and towards a more considerate, listening government that he proposes in the rest of his speech. However, there is no open condemnation of any of New Labour's track record, particularly the Brown legacy, throughout the entire speech. Tick the 'premise two' column again.

However, this is with one, quite significant, exception. The Iraq War. Although in the same section defending to the teeth other areas of New Labour's foreign policy such as the 'special relationship' with the USA, Miliband here casts a shunning blow onto the reputations of Brown and Blair:

"But I do believe that we were wrong. Wrong to take Britain to war and we need to be honest about that.
Wrong because that war was not a last resort, because we did not build sufficient alliances and because we undermined the United Nations."

A sudden change in his previously wishy-washy and unsure language, chalk one up for 'premise one'; Miliband here finally calls time on the Labour Party's defence of a war that's legality is still disputed. Whether the rest of his party agree or not, this is now likely to be the view of the Labour front bench and key players, as they look to 'please the boss'. Overall, the speech seems to be, rather confused. From what may be inferred, Miliband 'understands' why voters abandoned the party and wants to make a fresh Labour party in his own ideological image, but he 'seemed' to then go on to defend most of New Labour's legacy, and present little alternative or his own views when citing mistakes made. 

With the speech fully picked apart, we move on to the general persona of Ed Miliband, in particular, his relationship with the Unions that make up the Labour Party. So labelled, 'Red Ed' by the media and the coalition, Ed Miliband could have moved two ways with this in his continued self portrayal; he could have championed it, presented himself as an indeed more left wing candidate in readiness for the coming cries for welfare and benefits in the 'post cut period', or he could have dismissed it as rubbish in a bid to present himself clearly as his own man with his own agenda.

Almost instantly, Miliband came out and rubbished claims that he was somehow 'left wing' or that he was under the thumb of the Unions. He made it clear that he was his own man, with his own agenda, not to be led by anyone. His own agenda maybe, but by rejecting any 'leftite' tendencies, what room did that leave him on the Labour Party political spectrum; argue as you will the possibility of him going further left than supporting the Unions by somehow becoming Communist, the only plausible direction is right, back towards Blair and Brown. Another cross in the 'premise two' box.



Most recently, Ed Miliband picked his top team in his Cabinet post selections. Although the Labour Party voted as a whole to select the shadow cabinet members, it was directly up to Ed Miliband to select the successful applicant's positions within the shadow cabinet. The list below is a collection of what are considered the 'top jobs' and of these, those who held cabinet posts in Brown's cabinet are highlighted:

Shadow Chancellor - Alan Johnson

Shadow Home Secretary - Ed Balls

Shadow Foreign Secretary - Yvette Cooper

Shadow Deputy Prime Minister and International Development Secretary - Harriet Harman

Shadow Education Secretary - Andy Burnham

Shadow Health Secretary - John Healey

Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary - Douglas Alexander 

Interesting, and perhaps we can aid our look at just how Brownite Miliband might be feeling by noting who else from Gordon Brown's inner circle he has kept around his own cabinet table. Hilary Benn was an ally of Brown throughout his premiership, and also supported Ed Miliband in the leadership campaign, he gets the Shadow Leader of the House spot. Tessa Jowell has been appointed to shadow the developments in the progress of the run-up to the Olympic games in 2012. She is a true stalwart of New Labour, who served as a minister to both Blair and Brown.

Brown's legacy in Miliband's first cabinet is much, much stronger than Blair's was in Brown's first. Could this be because Miliband is banking on the experience of Johnson and the effectiveness of Ed Balls in uncertain times, or is he simply keeping like-minded ex-Brownites around him to help pursue a similar direction to that which Brown left them? Either way, to qualify for a shout up to the 'premise one' scorekeeper, Miliband would have to have appointed more Labour Party members like Andy Burnham, a clear break from New Labour, to top posts. Another 'premise two' move so it would seem.

What precisely then is Ed Miliband's thinking and direction? There is no clear winner on our scorecards, we have tallied up points for both the "New Labour" and the "N'Ed Labour" sides, and a fair few of the goings on could be taken either way, depending on personal bias or differing viewpoints on the context in which Ed Miliband finds himself.

More has been linked from the analysis to 'premise two', suggesting that Miliband is favouring keeping away from the days of the 'loony left' and following more of a variation of what New Labour had already started. However, he blatantly did not agree with everything that Brown and Blair did, particularly Iraq, but at the same time refuses, even now, to openly and fully criticise specific policy which has gone before, even when so much of it was the cause of the mass desertion of floating voters from the party over the past 13 years. That aside, Miliband is desperately trying to make clear to the masses that he is his own man, his rather surprise appointment of Alan Johnson to the Shadow Chancellor job over the heads of Balls and Cooper demonstrates this nicely. Perhaps indeed he is following a very clear path in his mind, he certainly has an aura of a man following a dream about him, but THINK TANK believes it's a lot closer to Brown's vision and direction than many realise.