Many people in politics over the past few weeks have been saying that the Labour party is having a torrid time. Rumours and leaks of backstabbing and splits in the Labour leader’s circle have sprung up alongside an onslaught of negative commentary about Ed Miliband, both from the media and some within his own party.
One source close to the shadow cabinet tells me that the feeling in the party is “pretty bad”, and that they’d “hate to be a Labour politician right now, least of all Ed Miliband.”
Another Labour figure tells me about factions working against each other within the top tiers of the party, and I’ve heard from a number of insiders about blue on blue (well, red on red) negative briefings from certain Labour frontbench teams.
So it’s not just the press taking opportune pictures of bacon butties. The party is being affected by ragged relations at the top as well, and all this is in spite of a fairly stubborn poll lead.
Following an intervention in the Financial Times by Labour peer and Miliband’s former adviser Maurice Glasman, who accused the leader of “conformist mediocrity” and said the party is missing a “sense of direction”, and Labour policy review chief Jon Cruddas referring to a “dead hand” at the party’s centre blocking reforms, the latter made headlines again last week when a recording of him warning that Miliband is being “gamed out” by the press was leaked to the Telegraph:
“He just gets gamed out every day, every week because of the news cycle, the media, levels of intrusion, the party management side.”
But it only seems as if the Labour leader is being “gamed out” because he’s actually part of the news cycle, setting the news agenda a number of times in the past few weeks from a whole host of policy proposals including a radical shake-up of benefits for young people, transforming local government, wooing business, and a strong stance on rail policy and ownership, among many others.
Of course he’s going to be knocked down occasionally by those opposing his plans, and of course he’s going to have a few bits of data questioned by those scrutinising the proposals of our potential next government. But at least he’s going out there, almost every day, unveiling the plans he’d like to put into action if he were to become prime minister next year.
Miliband’s perseverance, both in powering on with his proposals, and ignoring pops at his personality, is a lot more than we’ve seen any of the other parties doing recently. As the Telegraph’s Peter Oborne wrote earlier this month: “Every day Mr Miliband arrives in his office, takes off his coat, and takes the bullets. I salute him.”
If Miliband is being “gamed out”, then our current PM isn’t even in the game. Where has he been? India? Or was it Scotland? All we’ve seen of our PM, and indeed DPM, is a recent announcement of emergency powers being rushed through for police surveillance – legislation at worst a hurried invasion of our civil liberties and at best a bit of a dull, technical response to some crusty EU directive. And something to do with strikes, which is just a bit passé and Eighties, really.
“I know it looks like Ed’s personal ratings are going down,” a Labour aide admits, “but at least he has ideas. This government is simply not legislating.”
And it’s true. There is very little coming from the coalition frontbench of any interest to the media at least, unless you count the unplanned fire-fighting of stories that suddenly emerge, such as the recent Eighties Westminster paedophile ring allegations, which eventually sprung the Home Secretary into action.
There’s a big, and favourable, contrast between a whole heap of proper policies from Ed Miliband – even if they are being ruthlessly scrutinised – and a government that briefed out a tax on plastic bags as the centrepiece of their final Queen’s Speech. Forget “game out”, that’s called “game over”.
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