Under Attack



Ed Miliband is under attack from all sides these days as senior figures in the Labour Party suddenly seem to grasp that the man they put in charge doesn't seem up to the job.

Even John Prescott felt sufficiently emboldened to offer the Labour leader some friendly advice in a bizarre column for The Mirror newspaper, a task for which I imagine the 'noble' lord was handsomely paid.

Lord Prescott ends his column by saying: 

"So come on Ed. Ditch the pollsters, the focus groups and US-style politics. Be bold, be brave and let's go all out for the win."  

Now I can't even pretend to know what this gobbledegook means.

But it comes across to me as if the Labour high command is saying that there's nothing wrong with their man or his message and that the solution is simply to shout louder at the voters and with a little more conviction 

John Prescott: Labour's Ed boys must be braver to deliver election success


BY JOHN PRESCOTT - The Mirror

The Sunday Mirror columnist and former Deputy Prime Minister says Labour lost the conference battle because they were too timid on policy
Photo - Reuters. Too timid: Ed Miliband and Ed Balls must be braver says John Prescott


If a Martian had landed on Earth and said “take me to your leader” he’d have ended up a bit confused.

At Labour’s Manchester ­conference he’d have seen a party ahead in the polls and seemingly heading to victory.

But he’d ask why the atmosphere was flat, where were the policies and who’s this guy in the park called Gareth?

Then our visitor would have visited the Tories in Birmingham, reeling from UKIP defections and facing defeat, but see smiles on faces, a confident leader and policies galore.

In Manchester, Labour had a great opportunity to put flesh on the bone, with papers and TV ­channels giving Ed Miliband and his team a blank page to get their policies across.

But bar a mansion tax to fund an increase in NHS funding and raising the minimum wage to £8 an hour by 2020, nothing sticks in my mind.

I do remember Ed Balls saying he would freeze child benefit but I can’t see many people racing to the polling booths for that.

There was no mention of what we achieved in Government.

I’m told that’s because Labour is “focused on the future not the past”.

Photo - Reuters. Fever pitch: The Tories made the most of their conference opportunity

But the Tories are screwing us on our past so we can’t have a future.

Miliband’s six-point 10-year plan was a start, but can you remember what they were?

They were just one-line objectives, not detailed policies. I can understand keeping policies until the election begins but time is running out.

As we saw in the Scottish referendum, a lot of people made up their mind way before the last stages of the campaign.

Compare that to the Tory ­conference. Every day they made a great effort to put out policies to the media – and they got the headlines and TV coverage.

A tax cut on pensions, benefit cards, seven-day access to GPs and a pledge to build 100,000 affordable homes on ­brownfield sites – something I pioneered.

Where was Labour’s detailed housing policy at conference? Then Cameron made his big speech at a lectern with all his “achievements” in bold letters on the wall behind.

He promised an uncosted £7billion of tax cuts by 2020. He won’t deliver them (remember their 2007 pledge to scrap inheritance tax?) but as election bribes go, it’s a belter.

The Tories may lose the next ­election but, by God, they’re not going down without a fight.

Labour’s approach is far too timid. I fear Shadow Cabinet ministers aren’t delivering new policies because Ed Balls won’t approve them if they involve spending commitments.

That’s because after the 2010 ­election, Labour allowed the Tories to start the false premise that we wrecked the economy and spent too much.

But look at Osborne – he’s borrowing more than we planned to, public debt’s increased to £1.3trillion and he choked off growth for his first three years as chancellor. And the deficit was less under Labour than almost every year under Thatcher.

Labour won three elections from 1997 to 2005 on reaching out to everyone. We introduced the minimum wage, a windfall tax on utilities to fund jobs for the young and put massive investment in the NHS and our schools.

We recognised the need to build broad support across the country, not just in our Labour heartlands of the North and London. That’s how we got a landslide.

But Ed seems to be pursuing a core vote strategy of getting 31 per cent of traditional Labour supporters with a few ex-Lib Dem voters.

He might as well have said at the end of his conference speech: “Go back to your constituencies and prepare for coalition.”

Ed might not like looking back, but he can learn a lot from our 1997 campaign and our pledge card.

Five polices on health, crime, jobs, ­education and tax that were costed, deliverable and drilled into voters on every doorstep. And at the next ­election we proved we delivered them.

So come on Ed. Ditch the pollsters, the focus groups and US-style politics. Be bold, be brave and let’s go all out for the win.

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