It’s the morning of the Queen’s speech and Ed Miliband is already running 15 minutes late. In less than an hour he must join his fellow cabinet ministers for the annual unveiling of the government’s legislative programme; a programme which some have dismissed as no more than a dry run for next year’s election manifesto that Miliband is charged with coordinating.
While time may be in short supply for the climate change secretary, however, ideas are one commodity which he insists Labour still has in abundance – even after 12 years in government. ‘If you think about what has been done over recent months,’ he says – citing the government’s recent work in social care, industrial policy, school standards and his own area of climate change – ‘I don’t think anyone looking at that would think somehow this is a government that’s run out of ideas.’
With Labour still lagging behind in the polls Miliband’s challenge as the party’s manifesto coordinator is to work these ideas into a compelling narrative that clearly contrasts Labour’s offer with that of the Conservatives. He suggests this will be focused above all on Labour’s contrasting approach on economic recovery – which he describes as ‘the election choice’ – as well as highlighting differences with the Tories on social policy and Europe. ‘So I think it’s a clear choice,’ he argues, ‘and my job is to help – and I emphasise the word “help” because it’s not a one-man operation – to highlight that choice through the manifesto.’
While Miliband is keen to offer voters a clear choice at the next election, some Labour members have accused the party hierarchy of being less than enthusiastic in proffering grassroots’ views on the contents of the manifesto itself. Miliband is adamant he will abide by party rules introduced in 2007 to give ordinary members a vote on the manifesto, saying ‘we’re determined to do that in the new year and to give people a clear chance to express their views about the party documents’. He is also forthright in his defence of the manifesto’s consultation process so far, citing the Labourspace website and Choice for Britain consultation as evidence that the process has been both open and democratic.
More generally, he rejects the charge that the party’s partnership in power and national policy forum processes seek to deny ordinary members a voice in the party’s policymaking: ‘I was at the NPF last July when there was an impassioned debate about a whole range of issues – including votes at 16, which people put into the party’s programme, a triumph if you like over the official position, similarly on House of Lords reform.’ While he promises ‘to listen to the people involved in the NPF to see how it can be improved’ and ‘learn the lessons about how we can have a more effective process’, therefore, he is clear that ‘I don’t agree with people who are cynical about that process’.
Miliband is also dismissive of suggestions that the unions might have an undue influence on the content of the manifesto given Labour’s reliance on them to fund the election campaign. ‘I think the unions do play a very important role in our party.’ Again harking back to his experience at the policy forum in July, he says he was struck by how much his conversations with the unions were about ‘mainstream issues which are about ordinary people in our society, the deal they get, the protection they get and the lives they lead’.
‘Away from the caricature of the relationship, what were we talking about? We were talking with Ucatt about issues to do with construction workers’ deaths and what we could do to improve safety, for example, in relation to construction. We were talking with Usdaw about issues to do with family friendly [policy]. The unions are at their best when they express those concerns of their ordinary members. They provide us with, as well as Labour party members, a clear link to the lives of ordinary people, and I think that’s the way that their influence should be felt in our policy making.’
If ideas are the territory on which the next election will be fought, then David Cameron’s recent Hugo Young memorial lecture, where he contrasted the Conservative’s ‘big society’ with Labour’s ‘big government’ approach, has thrown down the political gauntlet. Miliband is unconvinced by the Tory leader’s analysis. As well as being ‘an incredibly intellectually shoddy piece of work,’ the Harvard graduate suggests, at heart Cameron’s speech was also ‘a pretty rightwing statement, because basically what he was saying was the causes of poverty and inequality in Britain are the state, and that’s been true since the late 1960s.’
‘Anyone who’s got the most passing familiarity with the study of these issues in Britain would know that that is absolute nonsense,’ he continues. ‘Talk to someone like John Hills, who’s the foremost expert on this in Britain.’ He says that Labour needs to ‘make a very clear argument against the Tories on this, which is they think that government is always the enemy.’ Labour doesn’t think ‘government is always the answer,’ he suggests, ‘but we do think government is an important part of the answer to many of the social problems we face in Britain.’
At the same time Miliband is clear that Labour needs to be ‘reformers of the state as well as reformers of the market’. He points to his own experience as a constituency MP as one reason behind his reforming zeal. ‘What brings this home to me, I had last weekend a set of surgery cases about people’s relationship with public services and the state – some of which would make your hair stand on end. Now, it’s those sort of experiences that make me a reformer of the state and thinking what are the ways in which people can have more voice in relation to state services.’
Despite the challenges thrown up by Cameron’s ‘big society’ analysis, on the big questions facing the country Miliband believes the Conservatives have come down time and again on the wrong side of the argument. He highlights his own area of climate change as one area where the choice between Labour and the Conservatives is clear: ‘Frankly, I think the Tories would be unable to play the role that Britain needs to play in relation to Europe and climate change because they’d spend their time arguing for opt-outs and that sort of thing.’
Meanwhile Labour’s own strategy on climate change has been called into question by the reluctance of the US and developing countries to agree to a legally binding commitment on emissions ahead of the Copenhagen conference in December. While Miliband acknowledges that at this stage ‘it looks less likely … that we will get the full legal treaty in Copenhagen’, he is adamant that his aim is still for ‘a very clear and binding agreement in December to be followed as quickly as possible by the full legal treaty’.
He is certain as well that his strategy of aiming for a binding legal agreement at Copenhagen was the right one, despite the difficulties of reaching a global consensus. He suggests Britain was ‘idealistic’ rather than ‘naïve’ in aiming for a legal agreement, and that the pressure of a deadline has been an effective ‘forcing mechanism’ and is already ‘producing real dividends’, citing the recent agreements to new commitments on emissions by Brazil, Japan and South Korea.
On the domestic front he is forceful in his defence of the government’s recent decision to back a new generation of 10 nuclear reactors. ‘I didn’t grow up in a pro-nuclear family,’ he recalls, ‘but I think the challenge of climate change is too big to ignore something like nuclear power which can play a role.’ Familial loyalties are also called into question by his cautious appraisal of individual carbon budgets, an idea originally proposed by David Miliband when he was environment secretary. ‘It’s my brother’s idea so I have to be nice about individual carbon budgets,’ says the junior Miliband, before politely dismissing the proposal as ‘a potential idea for the longer term’.
Indeed while his older brother is more often cited as a potential future leader of the party, it is on Ed that increasingly the smart money is placed. For now however his one Christmas wish is for ‘the continuation of a Labour government’. He says his job as manifesto coordinator in the coming months is to ‘generate real excitement … about what, despite the tough times, a fourth-term Labour government could do on issues like social care, like having a wider industrial base and creating new jobs including green industries, like reforming our democracy, like on an issue on climate change. So, that’s my wish.’