CONFERENCE SPECIAL
MILIBAND SETS OUT CLEAR NARRATIVE FOR GOVERNMENT
Dominic Pendry Director, Edelman Public Affairs In the full pomp of the Blair-era, Labour Conference was awash with political heavyweights and grand gestures. Who can forget Bill Clinton’s appearance in a Blackpool chip shop, or John Prescott’s decision to take a car a few hundred yards down the sea-front to the conference centre? The tone at this year’s conference could not have been more different. Veterans remarked the event felt scaled down lightweight even - a sense enhanced by pared back security and reduced delegate numbers. The whole experience gave the impression of a party a long way from the reins of power. Recent polling has added credence to this view. The party has slipped from the substantial lead it held in the polls after Osborne’s calamitous budget 18 months ago and some pollsters, including YouGov, put Labour neck-and-neck with the Conservatives in the run up to conference week. The leadership has faced a significant and justifiable attack for failing to offer up substantive policies to the electorate. Perhaps most worryingly for Labour, Miliband’s personal ratings continued to flat-line with only 17% of people questioned believing him up to the job of Prime Minister. A week later and there is more confidence in the Labour ranks. The party showed discipline throughout the week, painting pictures in primary colours and sticking firmly to a simple proposition, put forward time and again from podiums in Brighton: that the ‘cost of living’ is rising, and the Conservatives are to blame. The leadership also moved away from the wonkish language of old, announcing a string of simple policies that will resonate with ordinary people. Gone was talk of pre-distribution or predators vs producers. In its Daily Bulletin 2013
place came banker bashing, talk of cheaper utility bills, and moves to pick up the pace of house-building. There are dangers with such policies of course, but party activists have something that can be sold on the doorstep, readily understood, and a cause for which they are prepared to fight. Of course, securing the support of Labour party members is not enough and there are a number of significant obstacles to overcome if it is to appeal to floating voters in 2015. Firstly there is Miliband himself. The leader has performed well in recent days but there remains a sense of his leadership as a work in progress. Ed must perform at least this well - or better - for the next 18 months to convince he should be given the keys to Number 10. The party must also go some way to healing the growing rift with business. Outspoken attacks by Lord Digby Jones, a former Labour Trade and Investment Minister, are indicative of the extent of the problem. Labour simply cannot go into the next election with any real optimism if it faces the same low levels of business support faced by Brown in 2010. Finally the party will have to develop credible and coherent positions on some of the minefield issues – such as welfare reform, immigration, Europe and the deficit – that it studiously avoided this week. Overall there was progress. This week may not have held the glamour and glitz of conferences past, but the public is certainly much clearer on what a future Miliband government would look like. What remains to be seen is whether this holds an appeal outside the Labour heartlands.
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