Miliband Senses The Mood

Ed Miliband, leader of the British Labour Party, has, on the occasion of the party's annual conference, made a speech that signals a significant departure from the ‘New Labour' vision of the Blair-Brown era (1994-2010). Speaking in Liverpool, Mr. Miliband addressed a national mood of uncertainty and fearfulness about the future, in which ordinary people feel that they are at the mercy of forces and institutions they cannot control and which are indifferent to their fate, and feel further that the rapidly increasing inequalities in British society are threatening Britons' very sense of who they are. Among other things, the Labour leader attacked the Conservative-led coalition government for proposing to cut the maximum tax rate of 50 per cent for those earning over £3000 a week; for planning to cut corporation taxes for banks; and for raising university fees to a level that will leave all but the richest students tens of thousands of pounds in debt.Such moves took courage, as they were guaranteed to draw fire from the Tory-supporting majority of the national press. Mr. Miliband, however, knows that many of the worst features of the last three decades, such as the banking crisis (after which the public bailed the banks out to the tune of almost £1 trillion), rigged markets, the MPs' expenses scandal, and the phone-hacking by journalists, have created a “something for nothing” culture in which the predatory and the unscrupulous deprive the honest majority of the things they deserve. The Labour leader was as sharp about poorer people's illegalities and exploitation of state benefits as he was about the plunder at the top, notwithstanding the differences in scale at the two ends of the system. As for detailed policies, these cannot normally be expected on such occasions but Mr. Miliband indicated potentially major new approaches to political economy, including workers' representation on committees that decide directorial pay levels, greater emphasis on ethical conduct in business, and rewards for firms that invest for the longer term. These amount to more than just policy directions stated in the Labour leader's customary low-key manner. They show Mr. Miliband's quiet strength and confidence both in his sense of public feeling and in the best features of British social democracy. What they also reveal is his vision of a very different kind of society from one founded on the self-seeking ethos created by neoliberalism and its retrograde social values. On available evidence, the British public, with 70 per cent willing to consider voting Labour, share that vision.