House of Comments - Episode 122 - The Long Short Campaign

The latest House of Comments podcast is now out.

This week I am joined by Lib Dem Voice editor Caron Lindsay as the "Short Campaign" begins to discuss the Cameron/Miliband interview with Paxman, the impact of Scotland on the upcoming election and how mental health problems are being portrayed in the media following the Germanwings tragedy. And they find time to speculate about Lib Dem prospects.

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PS: A big thanks to Audioboom for hosting the podcast. We would also like to thank Kevin MacLeod from Incompetech.com for our theme music.

House of Comments - Episode 94 - Cash4Fracking

Episode 94 of the House of Comments podcast "Cash4Fracking" is out. I am joined by Labour activist and council candidate Claire Spencer and Ruth Porter of the centre-right think tank Policy Exchange to discuss Ed Miliband's banking reforms, Osborne's £7 minimum wage intervention, cash incentives to councils for fracking and the continuing fallout from the Lord Rennard case.

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here.

Other podcasting software e.g. for Android can be pointed here to subscribe.

You can download the mp3 for the latest episode directly from here.

Or you can listen to the embedded episode below here:

listen to ‘Episode 94 - Cash4Fracking’ on Audioboo

Any feedback welcomed in the comments below.


PS: A big thanks to Audioboo for hosting the podcast for us. We would also like to thank Kevin MacLeod from Incompetech.com for our theme music.

An Ode to Ed

Sit back now whilst I tell you of the tale of an MP
Who used to be in power now he’s oppositionally
Opposed to almost everything the coalition does
He doesn’t like the “Bedroom Tax” or health reforms because
He thinks they hit the poorest ones in our society
And that this will provoke some unneeded anxiety
Most though it’s the “cost of living crisis” that offends him
When interviewers ask something he always always bends them
Round until the answer fits in with his preconceived
Ideas about the crisis and what Labour can achieve
But lately indications are his economic tactic
Could end up being seen as something rather unclimactic
Inflation falling isn’t what he wants at least until
His Number Ten ambition has been properly fulfilled
And as for Obsorne’s stunt about the seven quid min wage
Well that’s the thing that put him in a monumental rage
It runs the risk of landing his key plank upon the rocks
For now he knows the Chancellor has shot his “crisis” fox
The moral of this tale is if you wish to importune
Make sure your arguments are not a hostage to fortune

*I realise that technically this isn't quite an ode

I'm hoping you'll forgive me as I didn't think it showed

House of Comments - Episode 80 - Going Postal

Episode 80 of the House of Comments podcast "Going Postal" is out. Myself and Emma discuss the Royal Mail privatisation, drugs policy, Norman Baker and conspiracy theories, whether Jeremy Browne might defect to the Tories and Labour's schools and welfare policies.

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here.

Other podcasting software e.g. for Android can be pointed here to subscribe.

You can download the mp3 for the latest episode directly from here.

Or you can listen to the embedded episode below here:

listen to ‘Episode 80 - Going Postal’ on Audioboo

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PS: A big thanks to Audioboo for hosting the podcast for us. We would also like to thank Kevin MacLeod from Incompetech.com for our theme music.

House of Comments - Episode 79 - The Debt Ceiling Gambit

Episode 79 of the House of Comments podcast "The Debt Ceiling Gambit" is out. Myself and Emma discuss Ed vs The Daily Mail and the fallout from this with journalist and author Toby Young and the US shut down with Deputy General Secretary of The Fabian Society Marcus Roberts.

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here.

Other podcasting software e.g. for Android can be pointed here to subscribe.

You can download the mp3 for the latest episode directly from here.

Or you can listen to the embedded episode below here:

listen to ‘Episode 79 - The Debt Ceiling Gambit’ on Audioboo

Any feedback welcomed in the comments below.


PS: A big thanks to Audioboo for hosting the podcast for us. We would also like to thank Kevin MacLeod from Incompetech.com for our theme music.

Power Trip by Damian McBride - Review

When Iain Dale first made public the fact that Damian McBride was going to publish a book about his experiences as Gordon Brown's spin doctor I instantly suspected it was going to be one of the most important political books of the decade.

Despite largely being out of favour since he was fired in April 2009 as a result of the leak of the "Red Rag" emails, in recent times he had begun something of a political rehabilitation due to his brilliantly written blog where he would occasionally comment on former and current political events. In this format he wrote with sincerity, self-criticism and with deep insight regarding the issues he was covering. In particular I recall his blog post* following the omnishambles budget last year where he revealed the secrets of the "score card" system that had been used during his time at the Treasury and how the fact that some of the measures that Osborne had tried to introduce would never had (and indeed didn't) made it through in his time thus demonstrating weaknesses in the current setup.

So it was clear that McBride is an excellent writer of long-form blog posts (my favourite kind) and he clearly had lots of experience at the heart of the Labour government. I was therefore greatly looking forward to the release of Power Trip: A Decade of Policy, Plots and Spin. I am happy to say that I have not been disappointed.

The first thing to say is that I think the book is structured very well. It is essentially in the form of 52 long-form blog posts. As this was clearly a format that worked well for him the decision to structure it in bite-sized chunks certainly seemed to work. I suspect there was more than a little of Dale's influence at work here, himself an experienced and successful political blogger. One result of this decision is that although the book does follow a sort of chronology there is a fair bit of jumping about in order to link things that had happened previously and that also happened in the future that were relevant in some way or that presaged later events. But I think it works as a device as it helps set the context and also shows like a flashing beacon as the book progresses the car crash that is inevitably coming.

When I saw McBride interviewed by Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight just before the book's publication Paxman rather sneeringly (as is his wont) asked him how we could believe anything in the book given that in various places in it he admits to having previously lied when a spin-doctor. I can't be 100% sure that everything in the book is 100% true but all I can say is it reads as if written from the perspective of someone who is deeply sorry about the worst of his actions and is still trying to come to terms with the person he became as he was sucked further and further into the mire of dirty politics.

I'm not going to single out any of the revelations in the book as they have been done to death in the mainstream media. I knew a few of them but there are plenty that were new to me. It is really however more interesting for the general picture it paints of life as close adviser to Gordon Brown.

Brown comes across as a kindly but irascible figure, prone to outbursts of temper whilst also capable of extraordinary acts of kindness such as his words to McBride on the death of his father about how proud he must have been of him and his brothers whilst he sat there in a pub with tears rolling down his face. Brown is also painted as an intellectual titan and voracious reader who never, ever stopped thinking about politics and what the next job was.

A laugh out loud moment is when he has to deliver bad news early on to Brown who predictably reacts badly, shouting with his fists balled moving towards him (although McBride makes clear Brown was never physically violent towards anyone in his experience) and he figures the best response is to get angry himself so he starts shouting, swearing and kicks over a chair. At which point Brown instantly stops and tells him to calm down! An interesting tactic I might have to remember myself one day.

The two Eds, Miliband and Balls regularly pop up and are treated sympathetically. They come across as highly intelligent both with economics and also politics and are key figures throughout the book. There are also some interesting insights from McBride as to what drives each man based upon his up close observations. The section where Ed Miliband eventually decides he can't trust our protagonist any more is chilling with respect to the sang-froid with which the final call where he repeatedly tells him he thinks he is a "liar" is delivered. Food for thought for anyone who thinks Miliband does not have the steel to be Prime Minister one day. He clearly does if this is anything to go by.

On the subject of dirty tricks which are covered extensively McBride goes into lots of detail as to how stories were leaked, political editors and reporters effectively bribed with "better" stories to head them away from things he and his boss would not have wanted splashed on the front pages and generally would seem to serve as a guide to spin-doctoring. I suspect many current and aspiring spinners will be scouring this book for tips and tricks from one of the best in the business. McBride even seems to implicitly point to his not being there as one of the main reasons for various media cock-ups such as the Gillian Duffy episode from the 2010 election where Brown was inadvertently recorded describing her as a "bigoted woman".

One criticism I would level at the book is that some of his behaviour towards the Blair camp is brushed off with a rather insouciant "they were as bad as we were" mentality. I have to say that from what I know of what happened on the Blair side of the camp, yes they were not great but any objective analysis would surely show that the Brown spin camp spearheaded by McBride were worse. Indeed McBride spells it out in painstaking detail throughout the book rather undermining his complacency in this area. A little bit more humility about this would have helped I feel.

Overall though it is an excellent read and for a political geek like me there was enough behind the scenes colour and filling in the gaps for episodes that I recall seeing unfold from the outside to keep me glued to it for the 2 days (on and off) it took me to read it. It does however lend itself to dipping in and out of due to the blog like nature of it as described earlier.

I would certainly recommend this book to anyone interested in politics and/or the processes that go on behind the scenes. I suspect that all the main movers and shakers of all parties will have it on their reading lists, and that's if they haven't already read it. In the world of Westminster there is almost no bigger compliment for political memoirs. It shows you once mattered and Damian McBride certainly did.


PS: We covered the fallout from Damian McBride's book in this week's House of Comments podcast recorded in Brighton at the Labour conference.

*Incidentally his entire blog now appears to have been taken off the internet, perhaps because of the publication of this book but his budget post can still be seen in this cross-posting on Liberal Conspiracy.

Cameron's loss is parliament's gain

To listen to much of the coverage of politics in the UK these days you would often think that the opinion of only three people really matters. David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg.

So much of the debate is conducted around what these three men think and want that the commentariat are largely at a loss to know what to do when suddenly the true nature of our democratic system asserts itself as happened on Thursday with the Commons voting to decline military support for an attack on Syria.

So the prism that this story has been filtered through has been a "defeat" for Cameron. Or a "victory" for Miliband (even though his position shifted several times in the run-up to the vote). Or in some cases also a "defeat" for Clegg who is pretty much in the same position as Cameron albeit less exposed.

This sort of reporting though seems to follow the unwritten rule that we live in some sort of presidential system whereby a usually all-powerful man (Cameron) has somehow been inexplicably thwarted. That is not the system we live in. We live in a parliamentary democracy. 650 constituencies return members to this parliament and they vote on our behalf on issues. If a majority of them are in favour of an action or change, it happens. If they're not, it doesn't. There's nothing strange or ahistorical in that sense about Thursday's vote. There simply were not enough MPs willing to vote for military action. Or more accurately the principle of military action (the actual vote on action would have come later and now almost certainly won't).

After some soul searching I personally found myself by Thursday reluctantly in favour of military action. But it was a finely balanced thing and I completely understand others, including a majority of parliamentarians coming to a different conclusion.

There is no doubt that the Prime Minister lost the vote on Thursday. He wanted support for a plan to intervene and now that is not going to happen. But we are in a hung parliament with a fragile economy and many other problems. It is hardly surprising that on a vote to start launching missiles at a rogue regime within a highly unstable region our representatives in Westminster decided no. If they were unpersuaded then so be it.

My initial reaction on Thursday was to think that Cameron was severely damaged by this episode but I have since checked myself. I was reacting like a typical Westminster Bubble-ite filtering everything through a presidential "politics of personality" filter. There is no reason why the PM cannot emerge from this episode with his head held high. He tried to garner support for action that even the most gung-ho would surely concede the consequences of which are highly unpredictable and lost by only a couple of handfuls of votes. Parliament were accurately reflecting the will of the country if polling is to be believed. So Cameron now goes back to Obama and says he cannot follow through with what he would like to do due to his hands being tied. Obama of all people knows what this feels like having had many bruising battles with politicians in his own political system with its separation of powers and staggered electoral timetables. If anything I expect the President has much sympathy with his UK colleague and respects the position he is in.

If anything Cameron might actually end up in a stronger position than he would have done. If the military action that the US and France are still very likely to pursue goes badly now he will not be politically damaged by the fallout from it. But if it goes well he can rightly point out that he was in favour of it. It's sort of a win-win for him.

And all this talk of his "loss of Prime Ministerial authority" is rather overblown. What is the point of having a parliament at all if the Prime Minister of the day can simply push his or her will through it? What we have seen is parliament doing its job.

We should not complain about that but rejoice that the system is working correctly.

David Miliband sealed his fate in 2009

If he'd have had more courage, David Miliband could have been Prime Minister today. On 4th June 2009 when his close political ally James Purnell resigned as Culture Secretary Miliband senior could and should have gone over the top too. I know for a fact that Purnell and his advisers were expecting him to and were baffled when he did not. Had he done so and then gone to the country in the Autumn on the back of a bounce he could have had 5 years as PM. The fact that Cameron could not even scrape a majority against Brown makes it clear a new leader could have turned things around.

He didn't want to be seen as the Michael Heseltine of his generation fearing that he who wields the knife seldom wins the crown. But Brown was a busted flush. It was clear a year out from the general election that he could not win. Purnell's resignation along with in the preceding and succeeding days the resignations of some other senior (but just not quite senior enough) figures such as Hazel Blears and Caroline Flint was enough to wound Brown but not enough to kill.

That inaction made him more like another Tory Michael of an earlier generation. Michael Portillo. OK so he didn't put phone lines in but his various manouvers such as his article in The Guardian in July 2008 which tried to set out a vision for Labour and conspicuously did not even mention the then PM was a more subtle form of the same thing.

The indecision at a time when Labour really needed someone to step up and save the party from itself marked him down for me as an also-ran. Despite the fact that he started the 2010 leadership election as clear favourite I did not expect him to win. Indeed I actually expected his brother Ed to outshine him and ultimately take the crown as happened.

He was too cautious during the campaign too. He played it defensively and seemed genuinely irritated that his younger brother had had the temerity to run against him. Why on Earth he expected to have the field to himself in this way is baffling to me. Future PMs need to take on all comers.

So now David is standing down from parliament to take on an international charity role. I think we can interpret this as the end of his domestic political ambitions. There may be a role in Europe for him at some point in the future but stepping down as an MP is usually a clear signal that politicians are finished with the daily grind and the greasy pole.

David Miliband now stands as a warning to future politicians in the opposite way to Heseltine. When vying for the leadership and/or premiership of course they need to take into account the actions of Tarzan in 1990 and not be too bold. But they also need to not be too cautious. Otherwise the prize they most desire could just as easily slip from their grasp.

What's missing Ed is "Why"

Ed Miliband is beginning to make a habit of apologising for things that the previous Labour government did.

That is a good thing. Too many politicians stick to their guns even when events (and eventually history) prove them wrong. To recognise that his own party has made mistakes and to outline what they were marks him out as a mature leader.

He was at it again last week during a speech to the Fabians:

The Opposition leader said the previous Labour government had become distant from the public on issues such as immigration, and failed to rein in excess at the top of society.
Fleshing out his vision of One Nation Labour in a speech to the Fabian Society, he also highlighted new policies designed to help people priced out of buying homes.
It is Miliband's latest attempt to distance himself from elements of the last government's record considered toxic by many strategists.
New Labour was "too timid in enforcing rights and responsibilities, especially at the top, and it was too sanguine about the consequences of the rampant free markets".
He said: "By the time we left office too many of people of Britain didn't feel as if the Labour party was open to their influence, or listening to them," Miliband said.

I agree with Ed. Labour had become distant from the public on a whole raft of issues. They did fail to rein in excess at the top which given how equality is effectively Labour's rasion d'etre is somewhat bizarre.

But while I commend his willingness to be honest about his party's failings there is something missing from his analysis.

Why?

Why did Labour become distant from the public on so many issues? Why did they give free rein to the markets for so long and ignore all the calls from people both within politics (such as Vince Cable) and without? Why did they get so close to Rupert Murdoch and other newspaper proprietors? Why did they fail to crack down on rogue landlords? Etc. Etc. Etc.

I'm not saying this in order to kick Ed and Labour. I am genuinely asking. I want to understand why it happened.

Because unless we get a clear sense that there is an understanding of why Labour went so far off track on some of the key issues when they were in government then I am far from clear that it won't happen again.

Government is tough. Very tough. My party has found this out the hard way in the last two and a half years. Tony Blair used to describe how several times per day he was essentially asked whether he wanted to "slash his wrists" or "cut his throat".

I think the people that Ed Miliband is appealing to with his "One Nation" positioning will want to understand the reasons why what he is apologising for happened in the first place. When his party was found wanting in certain respects there must be causes. Structural? Personnel? Political? Probably a combination of all of these and more.

But we are not getting this. Instead we are hearing that we need to "move on" from New Labour. Yes, we do. But before we move on we need to be clear on what caused the problems. Otherwise there is a very high risk that we will move back if Labour end up in government again.

I get the sense that Ed really does not want this to happen. If so, his mea culpa needs a firmer basis.

We need to know why.

If Ed doesn't want to share an AV platform with Nick, that's fine (#Yes2AV)

The news reported yesterday that apparently Ed Miliband is indicating he does not want to share a platform with Nick Clegg in the AV referendum campaign, despite the fact that they will be campaigning for the same side has caused a bit of a stir. Some of my fellow Lib Dems seem a bit put out.

As far as I am concerned though this is fair enough. The Lib Dems are below 10% in some polls. Miliband's suggestion that Nick Clegg is politically "toxic" is taking it a bit far but equally he is hardly flavour of the month either. I suspect there is a fair bit of truth in the concern that sharing a platform with Clegg would make some wavering Labour supporters tip into the no camp.

At the same time part of Miliband's motivation could be to try and damage Clegg a bit more. I would be surprised if that had not formed part of the behind the scenes strategy. That's politics though and it was ever thus. It doesn't mean he is wrong to distance himself from Clegg if he wants to maximise the Labour "Yes" vote.

What I want to see is a "Yes" vote on AV in May. If Miliband's actions help with this cause, which I suspect they will then we should let him get on with it, his own way.

Why the Labour Party could be gone within a generation

The Labour Party could be largely gone within the next generation.

I realise this is quite a provocative statement and I am fully aware that with the current state of the opinion polls there will be plenty who would contend that my own party, the Lib Dems are more likely to disappear before Labour.

I should also point out before I start that I do not want the Labour Party to die. I was brought up in a family that had great respect for the party and its socialist foundings and tradition. If I had joined a political party before about 2000 it would almost certainly have been Labour. I was delighted and genuinely excited in 1997 when Tony Blair won a huge landslide and I think that the Labour government did some very good things in its early years. The minimum wage amongst others for example was a great change and the fact that all the major parties are now signed up to it has ultimately vindicated it.

Also, if the economy tanks in the next two or three years then Labour will very likely get in by default. I accept that is the case and what follows is predicated on the assumption that the economy does improve and the coalition's policies are ultimately seen as successful. What then for Labour?

If that happens then I think that within the next couple of decades we could see the demise as a serious political force of the party of Keir Hardie and Nye Bevan.

There are a number of reasons why I think this could be the case.

Firstly, despite some recent signs that they are moving in the right direction the party leadership still has too much sway over policy making. This may seem like an arcane point but policy making is the lifeblood of political activists. Without it participation in political parties is reduced to trying to sell policies largely imposed from on high. Of course some of these policies, perhaps many will accord with the views of the membership. But there will always be some that just do not. A good example would be the 10p tax rate being abolished by Gordon Brown in 2007. Eventually that move was mitigated by a number of measures to appease Labour back-benchers but it was immensely damaging and I can imagine how difficult it was for Labour activists trying to convince people to vote for the party when it was an active issue knowing there was no way in hell the party at large would have allowed the leadership to adopt such a policy had they had a veto on it. I know from discussions that many Labour activists are unhappy with how little chance they have to influence policy within the party and some look with some envy upon how the Lib Dems and other smaller parties are more internally democratic. The longer this goes on, the more in the long term I am convinced that the party membership will atrophy and wane. After all, I am sure there will be some who will decide it is not worth their time volunteering if their views will make little difference to the policies. A quick aside here - I know that some of the policies being pursued by the current government were not endorsed by the Lib Dem party membership but there are a good number that were and that is the compromise of coalition. If the Lib Dems had had a majority like Labour did between 1997 and 2010 then the government programme would have been essentially created and decided by the party.

Secondly, the Labour party does not seem to know what it stands for any more. I think it has been very instructive to observe the manoeuvrings of various senior Labour politicians since the general election. It is clear that there are deep divisions on questions such as how to tackle the deficit (Ed Balls and Alistair Darling were at loggerheads over this) or tuition fees with Alan Johnson being set against a graduate tax only to come round at the last minute to Ed Miliband's way of thinking but with no real enthusiasm. When this is coupled with the two year review that is going on at the moment which is scheduled to fill in Ed M's "blank sheet of paper" it does feel like the party has somewhat lost its way. Don't get me wrong, it is a good idea for political parties when rejected by the electorate to take stock but to see a party that once held such a clear vision for the future and founded the modern welfare state to be so directionless is quite sad and does not bode well for its future.

The third reason I think Labour could well find themselves waning as a political force is down to their innate tribalism. Now I have been misunderstood when I have used this word before so I will try to be precise here. I am referring to the tendency for Labour politicians and activists to push their own party line to the exclusion of everything else and to rubbish those of their opponents, even to the point where had their own party introduced a measure they would be supporting it but because it comes from somewhere else they are suddenly apparently viscerally opposed to it. I know all political parties do this but from what I have observed Labour are the worst at this. And it matters. A recent report by the IPPR reinforces other things I have read that even if First Past the Post is retained for Commons elections, hung parliaments are going to become more and more likely. But the way Labour acted in the coalition negotiations back in May 2010 (which I have gleaned from multiple sources) reflected this more tribal attitude and made it clear that they would have been very difficult to work with, even if you put the mathematics to one side. If coalitions are going to become more and more frequent then a party that seems unwilling to compromise is going to find it difficult to get back into power. I am basing this also on my observations of how they have gone about attacking the coalition. There is no recognition of the compromises necessary, just blindly attacking the Lib Dems for "selling out" or "betraying" people. Now I am aware that as a Lib Dem activist I am biased here and maybe the public at large like this sort of thing but I hope that is not the case. It feels outdated to me and smacks of a party that is still mired in a binary way of approaching politics that again does not auger well for them.

My final reason (I will stop in a minute!) is a bit more subtle but perhaps the most important one of all. An important part of Labour's parliamentary strength in recent decades has been how its core support has been concentrated more in heavily populated and predominantly northern areas. But a day of reckoning on this was always going to come. The fact that they were able to get 55% of the seats on 36% of the vote in 2005 may have been blithely brushed aside at the time but there was always going to be an adjustment to mitigate this inequity at some point. And with the boundary changes likely in the next few years to equalise constituency sizes this reckoning is almost upon us. Now as far as I am concerned this is the right thing to do. I think a proportional system would be ideal in terms of fairness but whatever system we have, the constituency sizes should be as equal as possible. That is also fair. But a consequence of this will be that Labour will find it harder to retain and win seats that it previously would have taken for granted. Over time this will erode its base unless it broadens its appeal. It will also reduce the "my father, grandfather and great-grandfather voted Labour" enclaves as those voters will be diluted with others often from more suburban or rural areas. All this is doing is evening things up but the effect for Labour will likely be to make their job harder.

So what can Labour do about this? I would suggest four things would help mitigate this and assist it in returning to power at some point:

1) Give the party members back their absolute right to make and veto policy. I know this caused the party damage in the past especially in the 1980s but the pendulum has swung too far the other way. If activists are going to slog their guts out in the cold and wet month after month, year after year to put the MPs into parliament the least they can expect is to be able to collectively decide the policies. It would be a bold move but the activists would love Ed Miliband if he did this and I suspect his leadership would be secure for many years. After all they are the ones who can keep him in his job were he ever to be challenged.

2) This is probably related to number 1 but a clearer statement of principles and direction of travel is needed. Labour used to know what it stood for but there seems to be a muddle at the moment. If 1 was implemented then the guiding principles would bubble up from and be reinforced by the party membership. That in itself would send a very powerful and democratic signal. In the absence of that though for now the public need to know what they would be getting from the Labour party. This may mean being very frank about some of the big mistakes the party made in government in its latter years but so be it.

3) The party leadership should do everything it can to ensure a "Yes" vote for AV in the referendum in May. The one person most likely to make the difference between and Yes and No vote is Ed Miliband. And if the referendum passes then Labour will be encouraged to engage more with other parties (partly to try and get second and third preferences) and over time to not be so tribal.

4) They should reform their leadership election system so it is one Labour party member, one vote. No longer should MPs have more say than anyone else and the third/third/third split between the three parts of the electoral college (MPs/members/unions) should be abolished. It would be brave for Ed Miliband to do this given he was elected under the existing system (and may well not have been under a reformed one) but it has to happen before the next leadership election.

I know the polls currently have Labour in a strong position but Labour also seemed well placed in the early 80s and it took them nearly two decades to get back into power from that point, and only after lots of painful soul searching and reform. I suspect something similar will need to happen again before they are serious contenders for government. The question is how quick the current leadership are to grasp the various necessary nettles.

Three reasons why Ed Balls will not make as much difference as some think

With the resignation of Alan Johnson and the promotion of Ed Balls to the shadow chancellor brief Labour now have someone with an economic background in the most important role outside of the Leader of the Opposition's office. In fact given the current economic situation it could be argued that the shadow chancellor is even more important than the LOTO right now.

He is being heralded to great cheers by most within Labour and is lauded as an economic big hitter by much of the media. However there are three reasons why I think Ed Balls may not make as much of a difference as many people think. And in fact he could become a millstone around Labour's neck.

1) The obvious first point is that he is very closely associated with Gordon Brown. He was his chief economic and political confidante right through from opposition in 1994 to when Brown became PM in 2007. Even then he was still one of his closest political allies. Given how much influence he had over Brown it is going to be quite easy to paint him as culpable in various ways for the economic problems the country now finds itself in. The only way to extricate himself from this is to denounce important parts of what Gordon Brown did and I cannot see that happening. So he is damaged goods before he even starts.*

2) The economy is in a bad state. There is a huge deficit and a growing public debt. The coalition government has embarked upon a strategy that focuses primarily on cutting the deficit with the aim of bringing the public finances to order. There are risks involved with this approach and it might all go horribly wrong in the next few years. Labour in its first 8 months in opposition have made it clear that they would not have enacted many of the cuts announced by the government and whoever is shadow chancellor it is clear that Labour's message in one way or another is going to be less cuts and more "investment" with growth being the driver to reduce the deficit. If the economy does go south and it can be demonstrated that the government's plan has failed then the governing parties' strategy will be shot to ribbons. If however it does work then Labour will find it very difficult to win the next election, after all they will be seen as not only having presided over the problems in the first place but also to have been on the wrong side of the argument as to what to do about it. And frankly it does not really matter too much who is in the role of shadow chancellor for how this will play out. It is largely dictated by economic events over the next few years.

3) The hype is too great. I have lost count of the number of times I have read phrases like "economic big hitter" and "he will land punch after punch on Osborne" in the last 48 hours. Yes he is an economic expert (although point 1 does diminish his claims on this somewhat) and he did well at attacking the government during the Labour leadership campaign but the expectation management has gone seriously awry. If he does not come out of his corner and continually land knock-out blows on Osborne and the government in the next few weeks then the narrative could very quickly start to turn. Stories about him having been a damp squib and perhaps not such a great candidate for the role will start to filter up. The press love to knock people down off pedestals and the way he has been built up so far leaves him very exposed to this possibility. If I was Ed Balls I would be furiously trying to play down my likely initial impact. The truth is that there are not so many opportunities for opposition economic spokespeople at this stage of the electoral cycle anyway. Even when the budget comes around, lest we forget it is the Leader of the Opposition who will stand up initially in the House of Commons to respond to the Chancellor. Balls will not actually get the chance to even try and land punches directly after the showcase economic event of the year. We are more than 4 years from a general election. Balls' value to the opposition is likely to be in building a strong and coherent economic policy basis to move forward on but if the hype continues he may not even get the chance to do this before he is already deemed a failure.

Don't get me wrong, I think Balls is a smart appointment to the role (although I actually think appointing Yvette Cooper would have been smarter for various reasons which I may blog about in future) but he is unlikely to live up to expectations and he comes with probably the heaviest political baggage of anyone else on the Labour front-bench.

*I am aware that a similar charge could have been levelled against David Cameron as he was an adviser to Norman Lamont in the early 1990s and was even pictured hovering behind Lamont when he made his now fateful Black Monday announcement. Indeed Gordon Brown relished making this connection over and over again and it never seemed to do Cameron much harm. The big difference is that Cameron was a very junior adviser to Lamont for a relatively short time after which he went off to do other things in the private sector before coming back as an MP in 2001. The link was pretty weak and hence the attacks were quite ineffectual too. Balls' situation is very, very different and attacks on him for his links to Brown are much more likely to stick.

Why would either Miliband want Balls on their coattails?

There have been all sorts of rumours flying around in the last few days that Ed Balls was about to pull out of the Labour leadership contest and throw his weight behind one of the two front runners (one of the Miliband brothers). He has denied this and insisted that he is fighting on.

He has the support of fewer unions and CLPs than his two main rivals and it certainly looks like he cannot now win. There have even been suggestions that when it comes to the vote in September that he could end up being eliminated first. This would be an utter humiliation for Balls. So you can understand why the stories about him planning to drop out and swing behind one of the front runners had a ring of plausibility. It would be real damage limitation for Balls and would likely secure him a senior shadow cabinet role if the one he chose was to win. Perhaps even his long coveted chancellorship portfolio (albeit in opposition).

But what would be in it for whichever Miliband he swung behind? OK, so it would give them a few more first preferences although of course not all those who would have voted for Balls will slavishly vote for whoever he decides to grease up to. And because this election is AV, and given that Balls is likely to be eliminated then many of these votes will ultimately transfer that way anyway.

I do concede than in an extremely tightly fought race between the top two, Balls' support could, in extremis make the difference. However look at the price the winner would be paying. They would have Balls in a very senior position and essentially unsackable. Gordon Brown's protege, the man above all others he was politically closest to would probably end up with the treasury role with the leader beholden to them and also perhaps with a simmering resentment from Balls that he did not win himself. Does any of this sound familiar?

Some of the more sensible comments from the candidates during the campaign so far have been to acknowledge that the psychodramas of the past and the nonsense that went with the TB-GBs (that is now being confirmed by very senior members of the former administration such as Peter Mandelson) was very damaging for the party and that they need to move on from that way of operating. The last thing the winning candidate needs to do is set the party up for another decade of dysfunctional internecine fighting at the very top. Far better for whoever does win to do so on their own with their own mandate for leading the party away from its discredited past.

So it would be very wise for both Milibands to resist any overtures from Balls. It would take real courage to reject what could seem on the surface like a way of boosting their chances but they should resist nonetheless.

In fact were they to do this, I would expect Balls to deny that he had ever entertained the notion and to claim that he was going to fight on.

Perhaps the Milibands are made of sterner stuff than it may initially appear....

What will David do if Ed wins?

I have been wondering for a while what David Miliband would do if his younger brother Ed Miliband were to win the Labour leadership. Michael Crick has a post today where he speculates that he would leave politics altogether.

I'm not so convinced. Whilst I am sure it would be difficult for David to serve under his younger brother (I write as the eldest of three brothers) I think it would be seen as extremely churlish and indeed childish if he were to strop off if Ed gets the prize. All his talk about wanting to serve the party and his country would be exposed as hollow. Any career outside politics would surely trade on his reputation from his former career. He would surely not want to leave under such circumstances?

If I were a Labour member I would expect all the candidates to fall in behind whoever wins and put themselves forward for election to the shadow cabinet. Their party is in a fair old mess at the moment and they will need all hands on deck.

If David swans off there will be no way back for him later. He needs to think very carefully before deciding what to do next should this scenario occur.

I think Ed Miliband will win in the end

With the news that there are 5 Labour MPs on the ballot for the leadership contest (nominations for which closed at 12:30 today) attention will now doubtless turn to which of them can actually win.

Having had a helping hand from people like Harriet Harman, Jack Straw and even David Miliband himself to get on the ballot, Diane Abbott will be pleased but even she would probably accept that she is very much an outsider and unlikely to win.

Ed Balls as I have discussed on here previously would be a disaster for the party in my opinion and from what I can tell quite a lot of Labour activists agree. A number have contacted me privately to say so.

Andy Burnham has amazing eyelashes but he never particularly impressed me as a minister and unless during the campaign we see some hitherto very well hidden aptitude for the top job I think he is unlikely to be victorious.

David Miliband has been the front runner for a long time but there are real question marks over his suitability for the job having so often baulked at the opportunity in the past. He could actually have made a big difference to what happened with Labour in the election last month if he had had more courage and gone for the top job earlier. My feeling is enough within Labour may well feel the same to scupper his chances. They would be well advised not to give the leadership to someone who lacks that killer instinct.

I have always rated Ed Miliband very highly and I think that he could emerge as the favourite over the course of the next few months. He generally comes across well on the media and certainly appears to be less wonkish than his older brother. He clearly has a genuine sense of humour as well. Of the five candidates I think he could win the party over.

If he is going to be a successful leader though, Ed will need to set out a clear platform that distances itself from the bad things that Labour did in office whilst keeping a strong link to the good things it did (there were some!). The fact that he was not an MP until 2005 and hence did not vote for the Iraq war unlike his brother may help in this respect. He needs to do what David Cameron managed in 2005 and essentially win permission from his party to change it. Then the public will know that Labour mean business again.

I am not going to go as far as putting any money on him. I know from previous experience how unpredictable these contests can be (how many predicted for example Harriet Harman would win the deputy leadership in 2007?). I did however predict that David Cameron would be the next Tory leader the day after the 2005 general election when there were still quite a few possibles in the field and he was far from the favourite. It was just a gut feeling I had and I am getting the same thing now with Ed Miliband.

The next few months will tell me if I am right about this.

Quote of the day

Ed Miliband during the first Labour leadership hustings was today asked:

"As Labour leader, would you invite Peter Mandelson to join your shadow cabinet?"

He responded:

"All of us believe in dignity in retirement."

THWACK!

Hattip to Michael Crick