The Staggers

The New Statesman’s rolling politics blog

Miliband hits back at McCluskey

The Labour leader wasn't looking for a fight but he's not prepared to back down now.

By George Eaton Published 17 January 2012 13:00

Unlike Tony Blair, Ed Miliband has never sought to define himself by picking fights with his own party. Miliband and Ed Balls's admission that Labour would have to keep most or even all of the coalition's cuts was not an attempt to antagonise the trade unions but an acceptance of fiscal reality. As I wrote this morning, George Osborne will leave the next government a deficit of at least £79bn.

But though a conciliatory figure, Miliband has just issued a robust response to Len McCluskey's fusillade against him in today's Guardian. Here's his statement in full:

Len McCluskey is entitled to his views but he is wrong.

I am changing the Labour Party so we can deliver fairness even when there is less money around and that requires tough decisions.

It requires a tough decision to put the priority on jobs ahead of public sector pay.

It also requires us to say we do believe the Government is going too far, too fast with their cuts but we are not going to make specific promises to reverse those cuts unless we are absolutely sure that we know where the money is coming from.

That is right, it is responsible and it is the way we are going to proceed.

His language ("we are not going to make specific promises to reverse those cuts") is noticeably more nuanced than Ed Balls's ("we are going to have keep all these cuts") but the message is the same: we accept the public sector pay squeeze and can't promise to reverse all or any of the cuts.

Those who say that Miliband cannot afford to alienate Unite, by far the party's biggest donor, should remember that, even at the height of Blairism, the unions continued to pay the bills.

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Tags: Ed Miliband

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15 comments

Tue, 2012-01-17 16:28 — David Lindsay

Len McCluskey knows what he has to do.

Individual candidates should be funded based on their public subscription to specific policies, including their record of having supported them where applicable.

And it looks increasingly as if a new party might be required. Perhaps initially in order to act as Labour's conscience. But always containing the possibility of replacing Labour altogether.

Tue, 2012-01-17 16:47 — Mrs,M L Bonwick-Jones (not verified)

@ David Lindsey
As a Consevative voter i prehaps should not ask this question but why should a new party be required?
Labour being the party of 'The working Man' of whom has changed over the past 30 years, so therefore so should the Labour party change, who do you think should run the country political Leaders or out-dated union Leaders who should realy start looking at what is happening to the outside world.
Prehaps Ed Miliband should have started as he ment to go on and not to pretend to be one thing when he was another, and who knows this new stand may be just another bandwaggon jumping exercise to grab some attention.
Question being regardless of their different policies who is the most straightforward, capable, and trustwothy
David Cameron or Ed Miliband(At this present difficauilt moment in time)

Tue, 2012-01-17 16:51 — 8910steven

`` It requires a tough decision to put the priority on jobs ahead of public sector pay . `` Well there you have it ; pre-Keynesian nonsense ...boosting the income of the lower-paid through taxation of the better off helps employment ,increasing effective demand by transferring purchasing power from those less to those more likely to spend ( Keynes`s theory of the `` marginal propensity to consume `` . )Berk !

Tue, 2012-01-17 17:24 — David Lindsay

Labour was not founded as a class-based party, and that is just as well, since it never commanded the support of more than about 55 per cent of the old industrial working class, but did always enjoy considerable support elsewhere.

Labour was founded to be the party of those who, in the present state of affairs, could not do without their Child Benefit, or their tax credits, or their state pensions, or their winter fuel payments, or their free bus travel, or their free prescriptions, or their free eye and dental treatment, or their free television licenses. On the bus travel, on the prescriptions, and on the eye and dental treatment, the question is of why anyone should have to pay for them upfront, as it is of why anyone should have to pay upfront for hospital parking, or for undergraduate tuition, or for long term care in old age, when this does not apply in certain parts of the United Kingdom.

In short, most people. But where is their party, our party, today?

Tue, 2012-01-17 17:56 — lmb (not verified)

Tony Blair changed it to make the party electable.

Tue, 2012-01-17 18:40 — Mrs,M L Bonwick-Jones (not verified)

@ David Lindsey
What has happened to your party?
Ask Tony Blair/ Gordon Brown ask them how the consequences of their actions have left this country in such a state that Liam Byrne could leave that now famous note , and because of that, the very people their party should represent have suffered the most.
There is also another question instead of what has happened to your party maybe the question should be what has hapened to your country, could a country out-grow a political party.

Tue, 2012-01-17 18:52 — Awake!

david Lindsay
'Labour was founded to be the party of those who, in the present state of affairs, could not do without their Child Benefit, or their tax credits, or their state pensions, or their winter fuel payments, or their free bus travel, or their free prescriptions, or their free eye and dental treatment, or their free television licenses. '

Shameful... am in total shock.

Tue, 2012-01-17 21:14 — C Baker

We are not in 1950's, 1960's 1970's or 1980's Britain. Then the unions could have a say and help the workers.

No, we have globalisation and a ready made cheap slave labour workforce in India and China etc.

We have a cheap labour source in the eu. Always ready to come and work for less than UK citizens. So, the unions are redundant.

The markets rule. Basically all government budgets are now run by the ratings agencies. How cheaply can governments borrow? That's it. Fullstop.

We have no power over wages in a global marketplace.

So it's not Ed killing off the unions. It's our love of the eu and the bonuses that the Labour government of Brown with the agreement of snp Salmond,(see his fab letter) that gave bankers such as Fred the Shred at RBS a bonus for laying off workers so he had plenty for his bonus.

There is no way back now.But don't blame Ed for once. Tell Merkel and her totak disregard for socialism and the Greek people, now being left to rot.

Tue, 2012-01-17 21:35 — Fraziel1

As a civil servant i am disgusted with his statement about public sector workers wages. Teachers, nurses etc might be on good wages and have had plenty of good pay rises recently but the average civil servant wage is under 19k a year and after the next 2 yrs at the 1% cap I , and many other civil servants, will have gone 7 years without a decent pay rise. By decent I mean above 1%. labour just lost my vote to the SNP and a possible vote for independence.

Tue, 2012-01-17 13:21 — Bob Miller (not verified)

Collecting the £120bn each year from tax evasion/avoidance and non-payment is the tough decision that has to be made. Con-Dems and Labour do not want to take on the City banksters.

Tue, 2012-01-17 14:15 — E Hart (not verified)

McCluskey is right. Labour exhibits all the characteristics of shallow, visionless pragmatism.

Blair filleted the party leaving it electorally successful but as yet another political invertebrate in the service of business. Britain needs and deserves better than the three apologies of the political apocalypse.

Increasingly, the UK is becoming like the US - ruled by a distant high priest cult which is totally out of touch with the reality of what it has created.

The unions should ditch Labour and start again. A party without vision cannot lead any more than a house divided can stand.

Tue, 2012-01-17 14:51 — John P Reid (not verified)

After the '92 Election,A union Official took to the Labour party conference stage, to say "This is the forth election we've told labour it's policies, it's the forth election We've funded Labour, and it's the Forth Election that labour have lost ,I think we're backing the wrong horse"
Without it occuring to him it might have been the policies he'd told labour to have that the public had rejected.

Tue, 2012-01-17 15:17 — Mrs,M L Bonwick-Jones (not verified)

Iam a Conservative voter and even i understand where Ed Miliband is coming from, he is trying to be responsible, he is trying not to make promises he can't keep, the public sector pay freeze must happen, the cut's must happen and even the cut's he does not agree will depend on the economic state of the country in 2015.
Also he is right Labour must change, it need's to learn to work with less money and be more fair at the bottom as well as the top as the people at the bottom are always the one's that suffer the most The problem Ed Miliband has is the Labour Party has not been in opposition for that long so she is not yet willing to except change. It took the Conservative Party 10 years to come to that conclusion and now as life dictates politics they seem to be back to the 'nasty' Tory thing again so prehaps there is a lesson to be learned.
McClusky stated that ed Miliband wishes to take us back to the 1930's where everyone agreed with each other, well good they all over the years in one way or another caused the problems the public have to live with so let them behave like aduilts and all work together.

Tue, 2012-01-17 15:31 — ang (not verified)

Miliband said it is better to have a pay freeze than to lose your job, but as Mark Serwotka said 'The coalition are putting 750,000 people out of work and issuing the rest with a pay freeze.' Miliband doesn't make sense, he needs to go, Labour can't win without union support.