With 20 months to go until the general election, how has Labour fared in the previous month?
Who said August was the silly season? For the Labour leader his month may have begun in farce, as he was duly egged in a south London market, but it ended in anything but. The skirmishes that so dominated the internal wrangles of the Labour party in early August now seem so remote and inconsequential following last Thursday’s vote, more so now that the horrors that are scarring Syria continue to haunt our screens and conscience. Preceding this flurry of grubby activity lay the summer of disquiet; a seemingly collective moment where many in the party voiced long-held concerns over the direction of the party, and that of its leader. Lone voices quickly became a chorus. The malcontents were the dispossessed, and the never-possessed, but also included seemingly loyal Labour flag-bearers all probing the leader with the same questions. The malaise before the high drama of the latter days of August was palpable, and many will rightly question whether, when Ed Miliband spoke, a desirable outcome was secured at all. But, quite against expectations, August was a defining month for Labour.
He may not recognise it, or wish to recognise it, but Miliband taught the nation much about his style of leadership and just how he would govern were he to become prime minister. Returning from his summer holiday in France, the Labour leader faced a barrage of criticism. Even before the arrival of this typically dreary month, Labour had endured a difficult few weeks. Summers are usually a good chance for the opposition to seize control of the news agenda. Labour did so, but not in the way it would have hoped. A fairly lethargic first couple of weeks saw the party knocked sideways by outspoken comments by George Mudie, Labour MP for Leeds East. And then the floodgates opened. The shadow health secretary Andy Burnham, former Manchester council leader Graham Stringer, the lofty Lord Prescott, the quiet authority of Alistair Darling, the brute force of David Blunkett, the affable Chris Mullin, alongside Alistair Campbell, all followed Mudie in expressing varying degrees of disquiet. The message ought to have been clear.
We, as a party, have had the broad brushes of the Miliband leadership. We know he is powerful and established enough to stand up to big, vested interests. Indeed, the party leader’s best ratings are still on his frontal attack on the powers and disgraces of the Murdoch empire. But that in itself will not win the election. Many of us recognise his patent desire to dissociate himself from his previous mentor, one Gordon Brown, and, the bête noire of the Labour party, one Tony Blair. Both are admirable desires; Miliband is at his best when he is his true self, playing to none one but his own sense of where he wants to lead Labour.
It has to be said, reluctantly, that his wish to distance himself from Labour’s past was seemingly stronger than his desire to associate himself on the right side of just cause of late. There are, obviously, always reasons not to engage in foreign wars. It also has to be said that bellicose interventions by Blair on the cusp of the Syrian vote did little to help the current Labour leader. But the resentment felt by Conservative MPs towards Cameron, and Miliband’s longing to distance himself from Blair, certainly were not among this parliament’s finer moments.
A month that promised little has delivered much. The party’s elders and some lesser beasts have laid down the challenge to Miliband. A few weeks from now the party will descend en masse, in hope, to Brighton. What will be the Labour leader’s message? For all the bonhomie of One Nation Labour unveiled last year, scant little has been added to this most promising of slogans. It has the potential to be radical, without saying anything at all, with promising much, while not acknowledging the tight financial landscape the party will inherit.
To finish the most unexpectedly turbulent of months Labour has ended 10 per cent ahead in the polls, according to YouGov. Miliband has enjoyed a modest uptick in his leadership ratings, and the pure, cynical, mathematical, calculation from his actions over the Syrian vote is that Labour have locked down the returning Lib Dem vote. A vote over non-intervention in Syria will not decide the next general election, that is for sure, but, as eyes turn towards party conference season, there begs the question – two years out from a general election, will Miliband end up with egg on his face, or stride the stage a politician renewed?
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David Talbot is a political consultant. He tweets @_davetalbot
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I watched Ed Miliband’s speech in Parliament on Syria.
I was impressed by its confidence; I was highly gratified that the vote reflected the will of the British people.
Here was political leadership of a high order – way above all those people who want to stab him in the back.
A little exaggerated David as he has had poll leads of 10 points many times before the Syrian retreat including early August but the media and our party ignored that. Moreover some polls are not showing such a lead either and Labour on 37 is reported by ukpollingreport.co.uk today. Personally I do not give a dam about Ed’s political gains during a debate on massacres and war crimes- indeed it could come back to haunt him, ( the media will portray it as a lack of moral courage quite nastily as in the D/Mail) or if things worsen he will be portrayed as the man who led the UK into appeasement, indifference and non-intervention. There are some who gloat over the victory last week. But many of us do not because the gassing of 1500 civilians including 426 children was a war crime in any ones language and it is to the shame of our party that we Labour are now associated with moral indifference to the gassing of many sleeping little children. I remain deeply disgusted with my party and for the first time since i voted for Ed feel a sense of betrayal. Yes politics is a nasty business but on this issue ‘the State gassing of civilians’ – to stand aside was unforgivable and repugnant by a social democrat/socialist party.