'It's the buses'

Ed Miliband speaks to Progress about making politics relevant to voters, how the Labour leadership can democratise the party and lead even in the face of disagreement, and why small businesses are natural Labour allies

It was at the 2006 local elections - a year most Labour activists would rather forget - that Ed Miliband had a conversation that would radically alter his approach to politics. A local party member told him the turnout had been ‘terrible', but the reason she offered for local people's disillusionment with politics surprised the recently-elected Doncaster MP.

‘It's the buses,' she told him. ‘If people thought local politics made any difference they think it would have an effect on the bus services in this area, but actually the bus services are terrible and nobody's doing anything about them - local authorities don't have any power over them.'

‘That story brought home to me that the way you make people think politics matters is by being concerned about the things that matter to them,' reflects Miliband. ‘In the end it's about whether politics speaks into people's lives.'

Miliband attributes Labour's defeat at the general election to the fact that ‘people lost the sense of what we believed and who we stood up for'. ‘What tends to happen over time in government, and I'm afraid it happened to us, is that you become managers and lose sense of your values and therefore lose sense of what you stand up for.'

The former energy and climate change secretary frequent mention of values has been translated into some bold, even controversial, policy proposals. Aside from leftwing leadership rival Diane Abbott, he has perhaps been the leadership candidate most critical of New Labour's relationship with business and most vocal about taming markets.

Miliband has backed calls for a High Pay Commission to look at pay differentials in the private and public sectors and what can be done to narrow the gap. He stops short of proposing a maximum wage, however, saying it is too difficult to achieve. ‘I am in favour of sending out a clear message from government that the differentials matter,' he says, adding that more transparency is needed about who bonuses are paid to and how decisions on pay are made.

His stance on tax will also appeal to the left. Miliband wants to keep the 50p rate for earnings over £150,000 both to help cut the deficit and to contribute to tax fairness. ‘The tax system is not fair enough,' he asserts.

Miliband has also come out strongly in favour of a living wage, inspired - like his former cabinet colleague James Purnell - by the campaigning work of London Citizens. Few would disagree such a policy is desirable, and it is sure to warm the hearts of many rank and file party members, but what would he say to local councils facing 10 per cent income cuts and pressure to still deliver important services to residents? Surely a living wage is simply not affordable?

‘In some cases it will be hard to do in the short term, but I think it's important to have it [the living wage] on the agenda,' he says, before pointing out that some local authorities in places such as Glasgow, Newham and Oxford, have already implemented the policy. ‘It doesn't always cost as much as people expect ... whenever you struggle for something important it takes time to implement it.'

Another goal that Miliband's leadership rivals think might take longer to implement is a shadow cabinet composed of 50 per cent women. At the recent Labour leadership hustings, jointly hosted by Progress, Ed Balls and David Miliband both argued that the proportion of shadow ministerial posts held by women should reflect that of the overall PLP, not necessarily a half. Why does Miliband insist on 50 per cent?

Pointing out that this is common practice in Scandinavian countries such as Sweden, as well as Spain, Miliband responds: ‘We need a grown up, not a macho, style of politics, and frankly 100 Labour women elected in 1997 changed the political conversation. We need to change it again. I think it would change our style of politics.'

New Labour, according to Miliband, became too caught up in a macho style of politics and too obsessed with centralised, top down control. ‘[Labour] used to say in the old days, you've got to sign up lock stop and barrel to the whole ideology. But actually you should recognise there are people who come to what we do in different ways.'

One group Miliband feels particularly qualified to reach out to, given his recent cabinet portfolio, is environmentalists - a particularly bold ambition given the recent election of the first Green MP. He has stated publicly that he would like to see Labour's membership contain ‘ex-Greens'. ‘I think I've shown as climate change secretary that I can help transform our reputation on these issues: on cold-fired power stations, on low carbon transition, on Copenhagen,' he says. ‘The work that my department did became a focal point for an alliance with environmentalists, not an opposition to environmentalists.'

‘With us you don't just get green politics, you also get fairness, which has got to be a central part of a green vision, and a commitment to an industrial future for Britain.'

All well and good, but the fact remains that Labour has lost most votes to the Tories, and suffered the electoral consequences. What is Miliband's strategy to sign up ‘ex-Tories' to the Labour party?

A key element, says Miliband, would be to carve out a strong pro-small business message, a sector of the population traditionally allied to the Tories. ‘New Labour made its peace with capitalism by essentially embracing big business. Actually what we should have done was put small businesses at the centre of what we were talking about.'

‘Small businesses should be natural Labour supporters because we are the people who stand up against the big vested interests in society - most importantly the private vested interests - which I as energy secretary saw make life very difficult for small businesses. And you wouldn't get the Conservatives doing that.'

A less dominant but much more malign electoral force that has threatened Labour in some parts of the country is the BNP. Miliband is convinced that ‘where Labour withdraws and where Labour is absent, the BNP thrive'. Labour candidates who successfully saw off the far right at the election, such as Margaret Hodge in Barking, did so on the doorstep, he says.

‘You've got to confront people both with the fascist nature of the BNP but also with the fact the BNP has no interest in solving the problems they complain about. They only have interest in stirring up hatred. The underlying issues are about things like housing, jobs and crime, which the BNP try to turn into something it's not which is that it's all about immigration.'

Miliband admits to the ‘shock' of an English Democrat mayor elected in his own backyard. ‘There were massive issues around expenses in 2009 but we beat back at this election,' he says. ‘After a year of an English Democrat mayor people realised they didn't have anything to offer.'

Grassroots Labour activists were no doubt a key factor in some of Labour's successes at the election, but party members sometimes complain the leadership does not listen to them. Miliband has insisted he will listen to the party membership and redemocratise party conference. How will he reconcile tensions that might arise between the members and leadership?

Miliband attempts to tread a delicate path. ‘There are always going to be issues where the leadership and the party disagree, and in the end the leadership has to listen to what the party has to say but the leadership has to lead,' he says. ‘But I think actually Labour party members are pretty reasonable people and what people want is a sense that they are genuinely being listened to.'

He says the party leadership has run into trouble when it does not sufficiently explain the arguments for its policy stances. When the leadership has offered a rationale for its stance, for instance as John Hutton did on nuclear power, party members, while not necessarily happy about it, have come to accept it. ‘We have to get away from the idea implicit in some of the discussions that Labour party members are difficult people who aren't going to accept difficult arguments.'

Miliband will have ample opportunity to make his arguments to party members in the coming months at numerous hustings around the country. Then it is up to the membership, MPs and trade unions to decide which candidate's vision can make Labour once again a party of government and a movement for change.

Photo: EdMiliband.org 2010

Ed Thornton and Adam Harrison

28 Jul 2010 08:30

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Comments

• Posted by Paula Sharratt on 29 July 2010, 5:45:47 AM

  I think it is true that local issues are a way that ordinary people can understand democracy but what I also feel is that we need to restore a sense that the system of government recognises that people are incredibly bright and make an immeasurable input into the country we have. At the moment, we're being sold short, segmentised and 'determined' on 'pathways' that we don't even know about until we make contact with organisations and issues that we should be able to participate and contribute to. I'm thinking here of the gap between consultation and participation and how it's really important to realise that often these 'segments' , 'pathways' and 'determinations' are only hypothetical, only one possibility. Yet information about 'the populations' is prioritised over the actual information in real time. This, over time, has the effect of making people appear outwardly servile and bland, yet inwardly frustrated and aggressive. This is why, I think, that we've had so many 'surprising incidents' of cruelty, rage and aggression. When you think about it, history, struggle for autonomy and self determination are what we are all doing, all of the time. At the moment it seems that we are living always, only, on the marketing tip of the really human iceberg that isn't just melting 'unexpectedly' in a virtual marketing environment that, for example, the information agencies cleverly predict, but that the everyday, diverse world of possibility is much richer and open to interpretation than we currently believe. I think we need to bring custom, history (for example what about the abolition of the census?) back onto the local debate about democracy. In Nottingham which really has been successful in encouraging tourism and internal investment, there's a gap of about thirty years between people who live on the massive estates and the people who've moved into the area for work over the past thirty years. An issue which really nods to a notion of common sense and the importance of custom and an indigenous notion of democracy is the following. There's a man who runs a market stall outside Primark near the market square. He's run his stall, selling tights, scarves and accessories for thirty years. The council asked him to relocate his stall and he refused, so they told him to stop trading. He stopped trading but kept his stall in the space covered it with a banner and set up a campaign and a petition. He stands there every day, talking to passers by. He says the council have asked him to sell fruit, veg or jacket potatoes but not scarves and accessories. If he sells fruit, veg or jacket potatoes he doesn't have to move? He says he watches the economic development in fron tof him, the markets from europe and other cities in the UK come into Nottingham, selling goods just like he used to. He's a market trader with a notion of innovation and economic development that really, is what created the powerfully segmented system that is now excluding him from doing what he knows best. He's a Nottingham person and has a constituency of support from the people who pass by, the majority of whom want to help him, want to see him get a fair deal. He's attended meetings of the council, has educated himself through his situation and it makes me want to cry that his future, his livelihood has already been determined by information processes that make it impossible for anyone to have the depth and humanity to communicate properly with him and restore his faith in processes that are currently not working.