Like Gordon Brown before him, David Miliband had tea with Gillian Duffy this weekend. During the May general election campaign, the 65-year-old Rochdale resident came to epitomise the perception that Brown was out of touch with ordinary people. Conversely, Miliband used his visit to Mrs Duffy to try to demonstrate that he is the “grass-roots candidate” for the Labour leadership, supported by ordinary Britons.
In an interview with the Daily Mirror, Duffy said:
He’s a really nice man and obviously very intelligent but also down-to-earth. I think he would be a great prime minister. I felt David really listened to my points of view and shared my concerns on the issues that matter to working people.
Miliband used the meeting to continue to push the line that he represents ordinary people, saying:
We need to win the confidence of many more voters like Mrs Duffy if we are to be serious about winning the next election. This new government is not on the side of people like Gillian Duffy. I am determined the Labour Party will be.
Though a conveniently media-grabbing stunt, the meeting itself is meaningless in terms of the actual contest. However, it is interesting for the questions that it raises about the kinds of voting patterns we can expect in September.
Duffy is a member of the Unite union, and will be voting on a Unite ballot. Unite came out in favour of Ed Miliband this weekend, but the endorsement carries no obligation for the union’s members to vote a certain way. Duffy is living proof that while endorsements might be useful indicators of members’ intentions, they are not by any means to be considered absolute (rendering the rumours that Ed Balls is going to drop out following his failure to secure Unite’s endorsement rather less plausible).
Similarly, David Miliband’s campaign have been very keen to highlight that their candidate is ahead on constituency party nominations, with 158 to his brother’s 146. But again, each member of each party still has an individual vote, and as the membership of each party varies hugely, this isn’t a reliable predictor of actual votes, either.
In addition, as Mark Ferguson points out on LabourList, David Miliband’s team seems keen to impress upon us that his endorsements from local councillors confirm his status as a “grass-roots candidate”. In fact, these councillors are elected officials and, as such, are just as much part of the Labour establishment as MPs are.
Miliband may still experience a surge of support from the true grass roots of the party, but it isn’t apparent yet. Tea with Gillian Duffy and boasting of his endorsements is not going to convince anyone otherwise.
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