IN THE END, after a four-month campaign, starting from behind, it had become clear that Ed Miliband had a greater sensitivity to the bruised mood of the British Labour Party, its MPs and affiliates. Albeit, it was by the narrowest of margins, 1 per cent in Labour’s hybrid primary electoral college system which shares power between the three constituencies.
Whether those political instincts can translate into a winning sensitivity to the aspirations of the public is another matter. The contradiction inherent in a “primary” system for picking candidates for public or party ofifice, as the US illustrates clearly, is that voters will tend to opt for one who reflects their own politics, rather than a hard-headed assessment of the most electable. And already yesterday the bookies were pushing out the odds on a Labour victory in the next election.
Sometimes the two imperatives coincide. And, in truth, what has differentiated the two brothers Miliband most clearly has not been ideology but their respective attitudes to New Labour and its legacy, and precisely the issue of how to reconnect with voters. Ed Miliband convinced activists that he better grasps that challenge. “The era of New Labour has passed and a new generation has taken over,” he told Andrew Marr on the BBC yesterday. His message to Marr, the party conference, and to the Sunday Telegraph was all about a conversation with the public and the loss of trust in a party which he, unlike his brother David, admitted, had gone astray.
But “Red Ed”, as the conservative press has dubbed him? A shift by the party to the left? Hardly. For all his talk of social inequality in Britain, of slowing down the Tory-led coalition’s deficit reduction plans, of taxing bankers, and his repeated embrace of the Obama mantra of “change”, Ed Miliband is no radical. As he ruefully acknowledged yesterday, his late Marxist father Ralph, scourge of conservative “parliamentarianism” in Labour, would certainly not recognise in his son a champion of anti-capitalism. Obama’s “change” agenda, let it be remembered, was also very much from the centre, and to the right of Hillary Clinton’s.
His central challenge now, after a contest that has been far less divisive than many commentators suggest, and certainly than previous Labour blood-letting, is to unite the party. That means embracing his brother’s talents, among others, in a shadow cabinet that reflects the party’s generational shift – and shift back to English leadership – to match the coalition’s. Labour has already clawed its way back in the polls, and its membership ranks have been swollen, not least by disaffected Lib Dems. But the party will also have to pace itself – the surprisingly stable coalition will probably be around for some time before it gets the chance to test its new leader’s electability.
One of those challenges will also be to calibrate the party’s stance on electoral reform, specifically whether to obstruct a ballot on the Alternative Vote system. As one propelled to victory by that system’s ability to reflect second preferences, it would be strange and regrettable if he opted for obstruction.