Martin Kettle
by Martin Kettle
Any serious assessment of Ed Miliband’s extremely important speech on welfare spending yesterday morning needs to start with a reality check. That reality check can be found in two recent YouGov polls. One shows the Conservatives leading Labour by four points on ability to handle the economy.
The other is a damning verdict on the Labour leader himself, with large majorities believing Miliband ineffective, unclear about what he stands for, and not up to the job of prime minister.
And there’s another thing that doesn’t help the Labour leader much either. For most of the last two years, political friend and foe have muttered noisily about Miliband’s need to lay out a credible economic account of Labour’s governing past and governing future.
Now that he is about to do so in a speech in London’s East End, he is already being denounced for his pains. And denounced not just on the right, where you would expect it — though David Cameron yesterday was quick to mock the speech’s well-trailed commitment not to restore universal child benefit.
On the wider left, and in parts of his own party, many are quick to complain that Labour’s fiscal caution this week is a betrayal of much they hold dear.
All this adds up to a salutary reminder that Miliband still has a mountain to climb in translating Labour’s consistent but not massive opinion poll lead into something more ironclad and irresistible as 2015 nears.
A reminder too that he is sailing into a strong political wind. Unless he is very successful, Miliband may find that this significant speech has already been framed by his enemies as the work either of a flip-flopper or of someone who is imprisoned by New Labour neoliberalism. Neither of these silly charges is in fact true. But that doesn’t mean they won’t get a fair amount of purchase. Miliband is running the risk of doing the right thing while gaining no political reward for it.
All that said, this speech is clearly a significant moment in the Miliband opposition years. There is absolutely no doubt that his people see it that way.
Miliband believes that this week’s long-planned initiative, with speeches by Ed Balls at the start of the week and now Miliband himself, both of them setting down Labour markers in advance of George Osborne’s election-focused spending review later this month, are a pivotal moment. The claim is that they add up to a Labour declaration of credibility and readiness to govern — but to govern in a different way from the coalition.
The headline commitment, both politically and in strategic terms, is the pledge to cap total structural social security spending over three years. This is unquestionably an attempt to evade a trap set by Osborne in the March budget. But it will mean more pain for more claimants until 2018 at the earliest.
And you only have to look at any budget red book to realise that this is a pledge which would have real consequences if Labour came to power. Social security is by far the largest item in any government’s spending budget. It dwarfs every departmental budget, in many cases several times over. So this is a cap with real fiscal effects and real-world effects for millions too.
Together, both these decisions take a calculated political risk, moving Labour much closer to fiscal orthodoxy and further away from principles that some (but not all) of its activists hold dear. That explains why Miliband is so keen to buttress them with evidence of his belief that Labour credibility can be built on a philosophically different approach — and with some of the money saved by the cap.
Will the speech turn things around for Miliband? That’s a big ask. Speeches don’t make the political weather, as he found when he made a well-regarded conference speech on the one-nation theme that had little effect on the ratings. Like that speech, though, Thursday’s appears to be a coherent one; while unlike the conference speech, it proposes real consequences for real people.
The most positive thing about Miliband’s speeches is that he says what he means and means what he says. He genuinely believes that a mildly social democratic alternative is electable, even in times that are likely to be difficult for several years after 2015. That is what he is determined to offer.
It remains to be seen if the voters like it. A very large number are going to have to rethink their view of Miliband for that to happen.
THE GUARDIAN
by Martin Kettle
Any serious assessment of Ed Miliband’s extremely important speech on welfare spending yesterday morning needs to start with a reality check. That reality check can be found in two recent YouGov polls. One shows the Conservatives leading Labour by four points on ability to handle the economy.
The other is a damning verdict on the Labour leader himself, with large majorities believing Miliband ineffective, unclear about what he stands for, and not up to the job of prime minister.
And there’s another thing that doesn’t help the Labour leader much either. For most of the last two years, political friend and foe have muttered noisily about Miliband’s need to lay out a credible economic account of Labour’s governing past and governing future.
Now that he is about to do so in a speech in London’s East End, he is already being denounced for his pains. And denounced not just on the right, where you would expect it — though David Cameron yesterday was quick to mock the speech’s well-trailed commitment not to restore universal child benefit.
On the wider left, and in parts of his own party, many are quick to complain that Labour’s fiscal caution this week is a betrayal of much they hold dear.
All this adds up to a salutary reminder that Miliband still has a mountain to climb in translating Labour’s consistent but not massive opinion poll lead into something more ironclad and irresistible as 2015 nears.
A reminder too that he is sailing into a strong political wind. Unless he is very successful, Miliband may find that this significant speech has already been framed by his enemies as the work either of a flip-flopper or of someone who is imprisoned by New Labour neoliberalism. Neither of these silly charges is in fact true. But that doesn’t mean they won’t get a fair amount of purchase. Miliband is running the risk of doing the right thing while gaining no political reward for it.
All that said, this speech is clearly a significant moment in the Miliband opposition years. There is absolutely no doubt that his people see it that way.
Miliband believes that this week’s long-planned initiative, with speeches by Ed Balls at the start of the week and now Miliband himself, both of them setting down Labour markers in advance of George Osborne’s election-focused spending review later this month, are a pivotal moment. The claim is that they add up to a Labour declaration of credibility and readiness to govern — but to govern in a different way from the coalition.
The headline commitment, both politically and in strategic terms, is the pledge to cap total structural social security spending over three years. This is unquestionably an attempt to evade a trap set by Osborne in the March budget. But it will mean more pain for more claimants until 2018 at the earliest.
And you only have to look at any budget red book to realise that this is a pledge which would have real consequences if Labour came to power. Social security is by far the largest item in any government’s spending budget. It dwarfs every departmental budget, in many cases several times over. So this is a cap with real fiscal effects and real-world effects for millions too.
Together, both these decisions take a calculated political risk, moving Labour much closer to fiscal orthodoxy and further away from principles that some (but not all) of its activists hold dear. That explains why Miliband is so keen to buttress them with evidence of his belief that Labour credibility can be built on a philosophically different approach — and with some of the money saved by the cap.
Will the speech turn things around for Miliband? That’s a big ask. Speeches don’t make the political weather, as he found when he made a well-regarded conference speech on the one-nation theme that had little effect on the ratings. Like that speech, though, Thursday’s appears to be a coherent one; while unlike the conference speech, it proposes real consequences for real people.
The most positive thing about Miliband’s speeches is that he says what he means and means what he says. He genuinely believes that a mildly social democratic alternative is electable, even in times that are likely to be difficult for several years after 2015. That is what he is determined to offer.
It remains to be seen if the voters like it. A very large number are going to have to rethink their view of Miliband for that to happen.
THE GUARDIAN
