Should Miliband run?
Posted by Matt Clifford on March 8th, 2007
There is an interesting video debate here between two Times columnists about whether David Miliband should challenge Gordon Brown for the Labour party leadership.
If you know anything about David Miliband, the chances are that you know that he is (a) very clever and (b) young(er than Gordon). But, let’s assume that the priority of Labour party members is winning the next election. It’s not clear that either characteristic will offer a particular advantage in the polls. In fact, David Cameron’s strongest point at the moment is nothing to do with being young and/or clever. It’s just that he’s not a member of a government that a lot of people are fairly tired of. Miliband’s problem is that while he could dissociate himself from the present government more convincingly than Brown, Cameron can (obviously) do so much more easily than Miliband. Post-Blair, Labour will change, of course - but it can’t build an election strategy on being more convincing “breath of fresh air” than Cameron.
Labour’s comparative advantages will be experience, competence and stability. It’s hard to see Miliband having an advantage over Brown in those departments.
Filed under: gordonbrown, labour, ukpolitics on March 8th, 2007
I believe that it would be a disaster if Miliband were to run.
Gordon Brown will get a bounce when he becomes prime minister and people will feel instinctively better about labour with Blair off the tv and newspapers.
I refuse to believe, furthermore, that the electorate will, on election day, choose a clone of the very prime minister, spin obsessed and seemingly unprincipled, that they no longer love, over Gordon Brown. Gravitas ain’t all that bad.
The lib dems would side with labour in a hung parliament and constituencies favour Labour anyway.
I think Miliband would make a great PM.
He gave a very interesting lecture on Monday 5th March: “The transition economy: a future beyond oil?”
See my analysis of his lecture here:
http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/2345
Was this the Government’s first “peak oil” speech? Focusing on oil, considering ending the UK’s dependence on oil over the next 15-20 years, creating a post oil economy and calling for “demand reduction - radically reducing our energy needs through much greater energy efficiency.” I think it could be.
I don’t think that a single speech on oil dependency signifies a great leader in waiting. He is, after all, the minister for the environment.
Climate change and energy are becoming increasingly dominant in the public mood and in politics. I don’t believe we can yet say whether Miliband or Brown would be better at dealing with the issues, let alone which one is more sincere about dealing with them.
I do think that labour will have a big advantage in the next election if they talk about the environment because it will be possible for them to paint Cmaeron’s ventures into this area as hypocritical, sycophantic, flash in the pan votewinning from a tory spin machine.
I liked Miliband (mainly because he’s quite cute) until I heard him on the Today programme this morning and every second sentence was ‘let’s be absolutely clear abou this’ - Blair clone to the extreme! For once, I didn’t mind John Humphries giving him a bollocksing because he was namby-pambying around with evasions and qualifiers. I’m not madly keen on Brown partly because he seems to have the same ’sofa’ style of government as Blair, bypassing proper channels to make big decisions with his cabal before discussing them with the government. But overall I’d go for experience over cuteness.
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