For all their obvious antipathy to each other, David Cameron and Ed Miliband are remarkably similar politicians.
Each lives in the shadow of a transformative predecessor that they must both emulate and escape. Both men are party men: unlike Margaret Thatcher or Tony Blair, they emerged not from the outside, but from within their party hierarchies. In the earliest days of their careers, they both had front-row seats at the collapse of the Major government. At times, both can appear to have a finely honed tactical sense but no corresponding grand strategy. They fought and won insurgent campaigns against establishment favourites and, in both cases, their victories were accompanied by predictions that they would lead to a period of Conservative hegemony.
The difference is that they now meet as politicians going in unmistakably different directions. At the CBI yesterday Ed Miliband sounded more like a prime minister than he ever has before, while David Cameron continued his bizarre reversion to an opposition leader. Meaningless and directionless anti-Europeanism? Nebulous and weak attacks on unnamed wreckers within central government? Unworkable cuts to benefits? Cameron is taking on a series of positions that would temporarily embarrass a Labour government, but they aren’t enough to build an election-winning coalition. To look at Conservative modernisers now is to watch a group of moths vanishing back into their cocoons in the hope that they might re-emerge as butterflies on the second attempt.
They’ve got good reason to do so. The Conservative path to victory in 2015 was relatively simple: persuade enough of the under-30s, ethnic minorities and city-dwellers who were sceptical about them last time to switch to turn a minority into a majority. They had multiple paths to victory: none of those paths featured welshing on gay marriage, cutting the 50p tax rate, wondering aloud about restricting abortion, and hiring Lynton Crosby, a man who has confused his loudspeaker for a dog whistle. Conservative modernisation may yet usher in a prolonged spell of Tory dominance but it will have to happen after another period in opposition, perhaps with a press-ganged Michael Gove or a reformed William Hague.
The temptation for pundits and commentators is to pretend that the next election is finely poised and that there is still the worrying possibility for a Labour own goal. But British politicos could do worse than pick up a copy of Nate Silver’s The Signal & the Noise, an excellent primer on the art of prediction. For all the froth around by-elections and cabinet reshuffles, British politics hinges on two important truths. The first is that, by 2015, most people won’t have had a raise for near-on seven years. The second is that, with the wind at their backs and facing an achingly unpopular Labour leader, the Conservatives weren’t able to get enough votes in the right places to win last time. Focusing on the horse race of Miliband versus Cameron is a convienient distraction for Labour thinkers, but it avoids the heavy lifting of mapping out a course for the next Labour government.
There’s another temptation for Miliband, too: that, in facing a Conservative rival who is suddenly and somewhat farcically reversing course, to respond to every single headline-grabbing, rabble-rousing, Euronut-pleasing speech or announcement. It’s become an easy refrain to say that Miliband must heed the lessons of 1992. As Cameron’s transformation continues, he’d be wise to heed the ‘Save the Pound’ lessons of 2001, too, and to keep his eyes on the prize.
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Stephen Bush writes a weekly column for Progress, the Tuesday review, and tweets @stephenkb
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Photos:
bisgovuk
Joanna Kiyoné