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The party leader's getting many things right and is leading in polls. It's time for others to get stuck in and be more assertive
The Labour party is dreaming of a leader. It wants somebody who can score points over David Cameron in the Commons; someone cool-headed enough to plan a clear strategy, not get bogged down in day-to-day tactics; somebody who understands the long game and doesn't panic or wobble.
Where can they find such a person? Don't worry, comrades: you don't have to look very far. He is there already, goes by the name of Ed Miliband, elected last year. Worth a look. I mention this because if you listen to the chatter from newspapers and grumpy MPs, he's doing terribly. Oh, he made a terrible pratfall by asking for Ken Clarke's head on a plate. Oh, he shouldn't have called on Liberal Democrats to defect. Oh, he should have said more – or by some accounts less – but certainly something different about Labour's economic legacy. He should have a mini-manifesto ready to launch. He should …
Well, for a lot of these people, what they really mean is that he should be called David.
Angela Eagle, who backed the elder Miliband in the leadership campaign put it well at a Progress rally at the weekend. Remember, she said that "nostalgia for a lost leader is no substitute for the hard graft of renewal. Tony Blair did not win a leadership election six months after an election defeat."
Quite right. David Miliband himself seems to have moved on and regained his spirit in a remarkable way. On Sunday, speaking about Pakistan and Iraq he was more eloquent and forceful than he had been even as foreign secretary. His assessment of the Iraq war, that its downside had been darker than its upside because of the mayhem following the invasion, was very welcome. Some are saying that had he voiced these thoughts on Iraq earlier, he would now be Labour leader. Maybe. I assume he had decided to wait until British troops had finally left, which – given his involvement in sending them long ago – would be an honourable attitude.
The key point is that he has reconciled himself with what happened and so must his old supporters in the press and party. Ed won. Move on. Get over it. A Labour opposition with both Miliband brothers in prominent roles would be stronger; a future Labour government with David in a top job would be better. But whatever David decides to do in the future, Ed is the leader – and the vital thing is to recognise the fact, and give him the backing he needs.
I really don't think Labour has an Ed Miliband problem. Nobody gets everything right and I happen to think he got the Clarke resignation call wrong. But he has set a sensible course; is making headway in the Commons, particularly on issues like the NHS; and is holding his nerve. Yes, he gets mocked for his voice and is caricatured. But this is what happens to every leader. It's absolutely standard. It happened to Bambi, and the Boyo before him.
His strategy depends, it is true, on taking two calculated risks. The first is that Labour maintains a constant attack on the government for cutting too fast and too deeply, and continues to battle against the Tory spin that Labour was totally responsible for the economic crisis. Yes, Labour spent heavily on health and education (and wasn't criticised at the time by the Tories for it). Yes, as Miliband himself says, Labour in government failed to regulate the banks successfully (though the Tories wanted even less regulation). But this was a crisis mainly hatched abroad and which, when it crash-landed here, both Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling did a lot to mitigate.
As to the economy, our dire growth figures today are behind not just Germany's but those of France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain. We are just ahead of Greece and Portugal, the basket-case economies so mocked by the chancellor, George Osborne, who will have to borrow £40bn more than he planned because of higher unemployment and lower growth. Nobody knows what will happen next year, or the year after – but for now, Labour seems on the right side of this, the most important argument of all.
Miliband's second calculated risk is to base his central proposition on restoring economic fairness. How, you might ask, could that possibly be a risk? The grotesquely out-of-kilter rewards top bankers and company bosses paid themselves have outraged middle Britain, while – despite Labour's work in power – the poor are very poor. In his piece in the Guardian and speech at the weekend, Miliband put it like this: "We need a different kind of economy, fairer to the lowest paid and demanding greater responsibility from the higher paid; broader-based, less reliant on financial services. A better capitalism."
If that isn't what Labour is for in 2011, then I don't know what is. The risk is twofold. First, the media will savage any plans for higher taxes, even for the super-rich. This is a default position in post-Thatcher Britain that Labour just has to live with. Second, it needs an honest and harsh review of what Labour didn't achieve when it was in government.
There were the excellent Sure Start schemes, the minimum wage, the extra money for teachers and nurses. But there were huge mistakes too. Miliband has admitted Labour failed to understand the scale and effect of immigration, particularly from inside the EU. Hardly a week goes by without us being reminded of how many new jobs went to migrants and how few to British people.
Why? Not simply because people have become soft, or lost the work ethic, though some have. Rather, because we failed to develop the vocational education and welfare structure that would encourage people into work and give them skills; and because Labour collaborated in the Tory drift away from any interest in manufacturing. There was lots of talk but too little action.
Owning up to some faults in Labour's record is essential. So too is recognising that the middle classes, and particularly those in the south, cannot be ignored. Finally, showing some optimism instead of the "we're all doomed" attitude of the current government can't fail to improve Labour's position. All these Miliband is doing, and let's remember he already has a five- or six-point lead in most of the recent opinion polls.
So for Labour people, it really is time to get behind the man and start to build a more assertive collective voice. Too many senior figures have been merely observing, with their arms folded. They need to get stuck in, as Angela Eagle has. Labour doesn't have an Ed Miliband problem. It has a self-confidence problem; and that's gone on for long enough.