Seumas Milne is on hilarious confused form in the Guardian today as he assesses another damp squib relaunch by Ed Miliband yesterday. After weeks of silence, as Labour has faltered in the polls, and with nothing much to say on the economy, he used the occasion to try to win economic credibility and give us some tough deficit talk from Labour.
Reaction yesterday, however, was not positive with Miliband again seen to lack substance and the ability to give an authoritative performance that a leader needs.
Milne says that it isn’t a surprise that Miliband has chosen to toughen up his deficit talk now as he has been under attack for not doing so. It isn’t as he if needs to have a position and it isn’t as if people need to know that the Labour Party has an alternative vision. No, it is just that some nasty people have been attacking him for not having a position and now he has to have one.
“It’s not surprising Miliband has chosen to toughen up his deficit talk now. For the past fortnight the Labour leader has faced a barrage of open or thinly coded attacks from Blairite zombies and former allies alike: from shadow cabinet ministers such as Jim Murphy to the maverick peer Maurice Glasman and a string of MPs, ex-ministers and long-forgotten New Labour advisers.”
His launch yesterday was preceded by another car crash interview on Radio 4, which Milne blames again, like his lack of policy, not on Miliband but on the people attacking him.
“Quite apart from Miliband’s awkward public performances, relentless attacks from your own side would damage any politician’s public reputation. And their impact was clear enough in the response to the Labour leader’s interview on today’s Radio 4 Today programme.”
But the weak performances and lack of ideas are not Miliband’s biggest problem, the biggest problem like everything else is the other people. It is the Blairites and there is only one way that Milne can think of to sort that problem out and it is it pick a fight with them.
“As long as he is threatened internally, he will look weak. So he needs to pick a fight with a leading Blairite and win – to show who is in charge. And then develop policies, such as turning the state-controlled banks into engines of recovery and a mass housebuilding programme, that could turn the talk about a new economy into reality. Only by moving further on from New Labour can Miliband succeed – and offer the country the genuine alternative it needs.”
Milne is as deluded as ever, as deluded as the rest of Ed Miliband’s shrinking band of supporters ( was that a policy guru who went over board?), who continue to believe that the problem is not in their man, but in their rivals.
I haven’t even mentioned the funniest line. Milne says that Miliband can “improve his communication skills, as Margaret Thatcher did”. I’m guessing as that’s the last successful prime minister Milne can remember.
