Tag Archives: Labour

When I die: Lessons from the Death Zone

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Philip Gould was the unsung hero of New Labour. Possessing a unique understanding of people, he was able to get to the heart of their hopes, fears and aspirations. The intelligence he gathered from polls and focus groups was utterly crucial to the project both in terms of presentation and policy.

When I die is his personal account of his battle with Cancer. A battle he tragically lost. Far from being depressing however (though, take it from me, it is not something to read on the tube) this is an uplifting and inspiring book full of hope and promise.

By choosing to accept that death will come to him Gould releases both himself and those around him, making their final weeks together ones of joy and intimacy rather than despair and solitude.

Perhaps most impressive is that first him then, in his final days, his daughter manage to capture every moment and emotion in words so that we can share in it.

It finishes with an e-mail from Alastair Campbell to Philip, written just a few days before his death. In it Campbell quotes The Queen, from a speech first spoken in the days after 9/11

“Grief is the price we pay for love”

Go read it now.

 

Thoughts on Tony Blair

There has been a flurry of activity surrounding Tony Blair over the last few days to mark the 5year anniversary of his departure from Downing Street. It has got me reflecting about just how good a politician he really was, whether any of the current generation have his potential and if not, why not?

First, if it is not already obvious, I am a fan. It was Tony Blair that gave me that final reason to join the Labour party back in the mid-nineties and, since his departure, it is a party I have generally felt less comfortable in. Some of it was his policies – major reforms to health and education that only a centrist from a Labour background could have hoped to succeed in; an aggressive equality agenda; a global view based on the spread of democracy and active engagement when humanitarian needs demanded it (not to mention the massive expansion in the international development budget). In short, the third-way was what was needed for the country and that is what Blair delivered.

Less tangible but perhaps more significant were his leadership qualities, of which he had in abundance. Whether it was the death of Diana, Kosovo or 9/11 he had a knack for understanding the public mood. He also understood the dangers of a political vacuum and, if no-one else could, would quickly step in to fill it. This was particularly important in the hours, days and weeks following 9/11 where America felt isolated and therefore unpredictable and the rest of the world unsure how to act, it is no understatement to say that during that time Tony Blair held together a global peace.

That is not to say I liked everything he did, far from it – Iraq as in for many on the left was a cause of angst and something I couldn’t and didn’t support. That said, I never doubted his belief that it was the right thing to do, and that is third important trait – the belief and confidence that what you are doing is right. Politics, particularly at the highest level is rarely about absolute rights and wrongs, it is about judgement. Once you have made up your mind you have to have the desire and belief to see it through.

So how do the current crop compare? Tony Blair said in his interview with the Evening Standard yesterday ‘there are two types of leaders – reality managers and reality creators. Mostly it is adequate to have reality managers but now we need leaders who can create reality’. Judged against that we are not faring well. Despite what I sometimes write, there is no evidence that Cameron is inherently evil, but he is just adequate – and that just isn’t good enough such uncertain times. Sadly he is not alone, there are very few, if any on either front bench who have that desire, vision and belief that is required to simultaneously take on challenges like the banking crisis, the arab-spring, health, education, the Olympics and much more. The only names who come to mind with even the potential are Gove for the Tories or Umunna for Labour. Both at least have intellect and belief in abundance.

Why so few heavyweights? I think the answer is three-fold.

First, selection for either of the main parties benefits two groups of people far too much – ultra-loyalists and special advisors/those within the political machine. There is nothing wrong with being loyal of course, but I would far rather have an MP who has the power of free-thought and rebels from time to time than one who slavishly holds party line at all costs (just look at how many ‘loyal’ Conservative MPs looked ridiculous following the fuel duty u-turn earlier this week).

Secondly, age. Has anyone else noticed how just as the average age of the population is increasing, the age of MPs and ministers is tumbling? I am all for the ‘if you are good enough, you are old enough’ philosophy, but as I mentioned earlier great leadership is about judgement and that almost always comes with experience. This also links to the first point and the shallowness of the pool for potential candidates. It is now a well-trodden path to cabinet – good school, PPE or similar at University, parliamentary assistant, special advisor, a couple of years on the backbencher and then a junior ministerial role before graduating to cabinet. Where are the teachers, doctors, nurses, business leaders in all this?

Thirdly and finally, the power of the whips has just become too strong – so even if you have made it through the first two, you are unlikely to get past the third with your reforming zeal and dignity still in tact. Like Big Brother in 1984, you’ll have every bit of independence squeezed out of you until you become fully assimilated into the party machine. Great for party unity, bad for politics.

And so, depressingly, fear we will have to wait a long time until we see another Blair and perhaps even longer until we see one surrounded by other strong Ministers. On the other hands Blair did say he would like to return to office….

Thoughts on… Gove and education

Michael Gove this week announced the biggest shake-up of secondary education in a generation. Should his policies ultimately succeed then GCSE’s will be consigned to the bin, being replaced instead by a revamped system of ‘O’ Levels and CSE’s. 

The way he announced it; allowing the reforms to be leaked to a very sympathetic Daily Mail before they had been discussed at cabinet, let alone parliament, is instructive in itself. It put Labour on the back foot, entrenching them into an ‘old-Labour’ ideological position whilst simultaneously emboldening parliamentary Conservatives and forcing Cameron to back reforms that are possibly too ‘old-Tory’ even for him. The Lib-Dems meanwhile continue to be confused – the leadership know the grassroots oppose any move towards a two-tier examination system, but understand that for the sake of the coalition and their immediate political future they cannot oppose it too much. In all the hype it is easy for Labour types like myself to disregard Gove and his policies as nothing more than nostalgic elitism but that would miss the point, and leave generations of kids worse off. 

Labour’s track record in government was good but it was also unfinished, particularly when it came to secondary education. True, Academies had just started to take-off, breathing life into some of the country’s worst schools, but still too many talented pupils were able to coast, whilst those at the bottom were frequently not entered for traditional GCSEs for fear of the detrimental impact they may have on league tables. Meanwhile the competition between exam boards led to corruption and the perverse situation where those offering the easiest papers were at a commercial advantage. Finally, GCSEs have lost the confidence of many employers. None of this is to blame teachers or pupils, who I honestly believe work harder now than ever to attain the best possible grades. But to continue with a system that has so clearly had its time fails them perhaps more than anyone. 

I actually agree with Gove on a couple of things – we should end intra-subject competition between different exam boards and papers should regularly be independently verified to ensure standards year-on-year remain consistently high.It is also fair to argue that too many pupils are gaining top-grades – that is not necessarily an admission they are easier than in previous generations, more that teaching has become more sophisticated and pupils are working harder, nonetheless any future exam system needs to be able to push the most able as much as it does the least. That said, a two-tier examination system that effectively limits a child’s ambition at the age of 13 or 14 is, to borrow a phrase from the PM, morally repugnant. 

Instead, I believe we need to look across the continent for inspiration, delivering more broad-based education for longer with final assessments in english, maths, the sciences, arts, humanities and a language. The resultant qualification being similar to a ‘junior’ baccalaureate. From here students have a choice to carry on and study for a full ‘baccalaureate’ (or whatever we might choose to call our version) or to complete a vocational equivalent. Either way, all 16-18 year olds would stay in either full-time education or training. 

Sadly, because of the nature of Gove’s leak and the resultant political positioning it is unlikely we will see the wider public debate and resultant policy in 11-18 education that is so desperately needed. Instead we are likely to see another generation unable to reach its full potential. 

 

 

 

 

 

Ed – Slowly but surely he is coming good.

If this was The West Wing you might say that Ed Miliband has the Mo. Well maybe just the M, or perhaps half an M. Whatever you want to call it Ed is beginning to look a little more at home as leader, and the public are responding.

His slow and thoughtful approach to politics, which for the first year of his leadership was deemed a potentially fatal hindrance, now compares favourably to the lightweight Cameron. This bears out in the polls where, not only have Labour held a fairly consistent lead in the last few months, Miliband has overtaken Cameron in terms of popularity.

There is no doubt he has been helped by a Coalition seemingly intent on destroying itself – but he should be given some credit for this too. Better strategy has meant, bar a few shrill moments, he has been more decisive and effective in attack – not allowing Cameron to wriggle out of trouble as he so often did before.

Credit too should go to his frontbench team, particularly the power-duo that is Balls and Cooper. Balls cut Osborne’s austerity budget to shreds and made one of the Tory’s biggest assets look weak, out-of-touch and out of ideas. His unswerving message of growth and gentler passage out of deficit means Labour have earned the right to be listened to again. Cooper meanwhile has done the political equivalent of taking May out back and giving her a shoeing. Law and order was once a banker for Conservative ministers – not any more.

Six months ago the resignation of a shadow cabinet minister would have led to abject panic. Today we saw a confident Ed Miliband make a couple of minor tweaks plus the very smart promotion of John Cruddas – a guy liked and respected across the party, whether left or right, Blair or Brown. That he didn’t feel the need to replace Hain with another ‘big-beast’ shows just how far he has come.

There are still lots of challenges ahead – Labour fell just short of the magic 40% in the May elections. turnout was also worryingly though, ,waning that whilst the public don’t like Cameron and Co. they are yet to be convinced by Ed and his team. As Ed himself noted at the recent Progress conference, he and the rest of the party now have a job of work to do to engage all those registered voters who decided to stay at home. He also needs to start articulating a vision of a future Labour government in policy terms. The country is inclined to listen, so now is the time to start the conversation.

That said, it has been a long-time since Labour were in such a promising position and, like it not, it is Ed Miliband who has put us there. Slowly but surely he is coming good.

Local Elections – First Thoughts (A good night for Labour, a bad one for democracy)

It is far too early to judge the significance of the local election results but, as of 7am on Friday morning, here are my early thoughts.

Labour have had a good night, whatever way you spin it a projected gain of 700 seats is not to be sneezed at. More importantly Ed M can point to gains in places like Harlow as evidence that Labour are able to at least compete in the South again. It is not a watershed moment and they will be disappointed if the share of the vote stays under the magic 40% mark. This gives Ed some breathing space to carry on with his ‘slowly but surely’ strategy and means they have earned the right to be heard again – a vital first step for any longer-term recovery. The disappointing result in the London Mayoral race announced later today will not be blamed on Ed or his team (in fact it arguably makes him look more of an electoral asset) and is unlikely to take the shine of his first real electoral success.

Although it was a bad night for Lib-Dems, I don’t think they will be too disappointed. The ongoing slide in the opinion polls has not borne fruit, with their vote actually holding up well compared to last year. Their biggest problem is, due to the peculiarities of our voting system, even small fluctuations in the share of the national vote have the potential to destroy them come General Election time. They have pinned their hopes on a significant economic upturn by 2015 and all the goodwill that comes with it, now all they can do is wait.

For the Tories this is a shocker, the leadership may have ‘priced in’ this scale of loss, but that is no consolation for the hundreds of ousted Tory councillors who feel the government has no guiding vision, no plan for growth and has become detached from its Tory roots. Better news to come for them later when Boris is returned as London Mayor – this is a poisoned chalice for the leadership though. How is it Boris can be so popular when Cameron, to put it mildly, isn’t? How come Boris looks like a heavyweight when Cameron, to put it mildly, isn’t? How come Boris has a mission when Cameron, to put it mildly doesn’t? Expect an angry and rejuvenated right-wing of the Tory party to put real pressure on the Cameroon both pre and post the upcoming Queen’s Speech.

All of this however will be overshadowed the the terrible turnout. Less than a third of people managed to get to their polling stations and put an X in a box. I haven’t really got my head round what this means yet – expect that it is bad for democracy and shows political parties continue to be detached from the people they purportedly represent. This probably deserves a post of its own, so I’ll have a think and get back to you.

Will try and write later once the dust has settled and the Mayoral results have been announced.

Tc Bx

The day I delivered a baby

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It snowed last weekend, and I mean snowed. But more of that in a moment. At 3:40am on Sunday morning Charlotte woke me with the slightly delayed words ‘I think my waters have broken’. It stirred in me a mixture of excited anticipation and relief – we were after all nine days overdue. Our first labour had been a shade under four hours, quick by first-time standards, but not alarmingly so. I woke Carol and Piers (my in-laws) and phoned my own parents, then put the coffee machine on; it could be a long night.

The first inkling that things might not go entirely to plan was when Piers and I went to get the car. The moment we stepped outside our shoes sunk down into the four inches of newly fallen snow, the car was going nowhere. A sense of hope not really bedded in any reality led us to the porters lodge to see if they had a solution. Whilst Piers was chatting to Howard I noticed a car stuck in the snow and went over to help. After a fashion we managed to get the car moving again, as thanks the driver kindly offered us a lift to hospital. It only took a quick look towards Piers before we both politely declined. It was time to call an ambulance.

When I got back up to the flat it was apparent Charlotte’s labour had progressed. She was in a lot of pain, but dealing with it in her normal stoic way. It reminded me just how amazing it all is – she could be shouting out in pain one moment and then able to hold a perfectly normal conversation the next. At this point I still assumed we would be having the baby in hospital, however two things quickly disabused me of this. First, Charlotte announced that, in the last seven minutes, she’d had three contractions. Second, in response the ambulance call-handler (who stayed on the line throughout) very calmly but assertively told me to get her somewhere comfortable, get some towels (it turns out you do need them) and check ‘if you can see the head’. Thankfully it was all clear, but equally clear was that it wouldn’t be long until I could. I handed the phone to Carol and got ready to deliver a baby.

Lots of people over the last week have asked how I felt at this point. The answer always seems to disappoint. I felt remarkably calm – I knew I had to take control of the situation and be able to make decisions on Charlotte’s behalf, allowing her to focus solely on the childbirth. This much we had already agreed in our birth plan (though that had assumed a midwife might also be there to help out a little). It sounds strange now, but my overwhelming feeling was that it was no big deal – she had chosen now to enter the world, all I had to do was guide her out. What’s more we were in a safe, warm environment and an ambulance was on its way. Things could have been a lot worse.

And so the time had come. After two contractions where Charlotte had resisted the urge to push on the third I told her to let go and push as hard as she could – what felt like seconds later I could first feel and then see a little head as it emerged to join us. There was a small moment of private panic when I thought the cord was stuck round her neck, it was just a hand, temporarily trapped by her shoulder. There was a moments pause as Charlotte caught her breath and then, with a final heave she was out and in my arms. We wrapped her up, placed her in her mothers arms and waiting for the pros to arrive. Our work here was done.

Writing a week after the event, there are a couple of things that don’t quite fit into the narrative of the story – the first is my sheer admiration and love for my wife. It is impossible to imagine the feelings and emotions that must have been coursing through her as first plan A, then plan B were torn-up before her eyes. Yet she never showed the slightest bit of panic and dealt with everything as if it was entirely routine. Even better she made us the perfect baby girl. I should also thank Carol and Piers who not only allowed us to turn their beautiful home into a temporary birthing centre but also supported us in the whole thing with a contagious sense of calm.

There is nothing to compare to the pride you feel on becoming a new father, and this doesn’t diminish second time around, The emotion that comes with being the first person to hold your baby and to have actually delivered her into the world is however off-the-scale. Even as I look at her feeding now, I can’t quite believe that it happened. It is a night that will never leave me, and one that I am sure will haunt Alba as I bore first her and then her friends recounting the tale for many years to come.

Labour needs to win big on the NHS

Labour have an important battle on their hands. Their opposition to Andrew Lansley’s terrible Health and Social Care Bill (and it is terrible, more of that later) is as much out of a need to defend their very being as it is for any ideological reasons.

The previous Labour government were wrong on the economy. This is now fact. It is irrelevant that Brown and Darling led the way in ensuring a global response to the crisis, stopping a complete meltdown in the financial sector; nor does anyone care that the Tories would have done nothing differently in the lead up to the crisis; the fact that Labour are proving to be right about the desperate need for a plan for growth to go alongside Osborne’s austerity drive is an irrelevance. History is written by the winners and Labour now have a long battle ahead to regain trust from the electorate. Important as the economy is however, nothing stirs a Labour person like the NHS – we created it and we love it as you would love a child. Lose the battle here and there seems little point getting out of bed in the morning.

So to the bill – and it is a shocker. The flagship policy is the creation of GP-led commissioning. Out go Primary Care Trusts and Strategic Health Authorities. In comes a single national health board and hundreds of small GP commissioning consortiums – reducing bureaucracy and making healthcare more responsive to local needs. It is doomed to failure.

GPs have zero track record in commissioning, they do however have a very good track record in clinical care. They also have full to bursting appointment books. Why, when the average consultation is already only just over 10 minutes in length, do we want them to spend less time seeing patients? The reality is they will delegate the commissioning powers to someone else. Who, I hear you ask? The very same people who have just been made redundant from the defunct primary care trusts.

Any suggestion of a cut in bureaucracy is a fallacy, the new structure has just as many levels as the old one, the simple fact is this is a major restructure that will cost billions of pounds and even in the long-term the exercise will cost money rather than save it. That the new system may be more responsive to local needs could well be a fair one, though whether this will come back to haunt the coalition is another matter – people crave consistency and a perception of equality. How long until the phrase ‘postcode lottery’ comes back into fashion and we start to see a re-centralisation of services?

The rest of the bill includes increasing how much private work a trust can carry out and laying out a timetable for all hospital trusts to gain foundation status. The former is there to increase potential revenues (though risks further impacting on waiting times for those who can’t pay), the latter will, in theory, help increase competition and therefore standards. (But also runs the risk of hospital trusts effectively being bankrupted, with all the associated political fallout).

Labour’s response needs to be robust, the NHS is in pretty good shape and they they have much to be proud of from their time in office – increasing spending to be in line with the European average, then using the money to decimate waiting lists, improve survival rates for those suffering from cancer, heart attacks and strokes and created a fairer pay and reward system, allowing the best health professionals to stay treating patients. The much maligned targets helped to ensure all this happened – as soon as the coalition sidelined them waiting times started to increase again.

What Labour didn’t manage to do is carry staff with them. Staff morale is arguably at its lowest ever, and is still falling. This impacts both on clinical care and the public’s perception of the NHS. Secondly, they didn’t make any in-roads into customer service – which, in my experience has tended to be appalling. It sounds a small issue, but most people’s first contact with the NHS is with a non-clinician and, if the quality is poor so is people’s first impression of the whole organisation. Any changes in the above will come, not from legislation, but from a change in culture and leadership. This is what Labour should be calling for.

Ed M and his team have had a good couple of weeks after a pretty disastrous start to the year, but this is yet another big test. Labour cannot afford for their record on the NHS to go the way of their reputation on the economy.

What Labour should be saying about Higher Education

You probably shouldn’t read too much into the news that University applications are down almost 10%. True, it sounds shocking and creates an easy stick for which to beat the coalition with, but if past evidence is to go by, give it a year or two and those numbers will bounce right back up again. That doesn’t make the coalition policy right though, far from it.

Our view of Higher Education is seen through the narrow prism of individual benefit. Put simply, those who go to University earn significantly more on average than those that don’t. University should be seen as investment – like property, or gold. What’s more, if your investment doesn’t pay off (i.e. you don’t earn lots of money) you don’t have to pay your fees. Bonus.

But what if you look at Universities another way? Perhaps argue that they exist to benefit everyone in society, not just those who have the privilege to study at them? Some of the arguments are obvious, nurses and doctors for example all repay society a hundred times over every time they save a life. Some are more abstract, how do you begin to quantify the wider cultural and societal benefits of a more educated population?

We live in a global marketplace, where companies pick and choose their suppliers from anywhere. A call-centre in India, a factory in China, a creative agency from the US. A better educated country is a more flexible country and the more flexible it is the more productive it becomes. This doesn’t just benefit graduates, it lifts salaries and living standards for everyone.

Higher Education however is struggling, funding is much lower per head than in the US (and the rise in fees does nothing to improve this – they merely help replace the £1billion funding cut from central government), what’s more we are suffering the beginning of a brain-drain. An unintended consequence of tuition-fees is that students have started shopping globally for their education, with many of our brightest young people opting to study elsewhere. The same is true of our academics. Outside of Cambridge (which still proudly sits at the top of global rankings) our institutions are beginning to fare badly against the global competition – not just from within the US but increasingly from Asia, particularly China.

Labour’s record on higher education is mixed – whilst in office it’s 50% target helped dramatically improve access, particularly to those on lower incomes. On the debit front they were the ones who brought in tuition-fees in the first place. In opposition they have, as so often, plumped for a ‘coalition-lite’ policy – where students will pay less, but not by much. It is both intellectually and politically lazy.

Central to Ed Miliband’s political philosophy is ‘the promise of a generation’ – the deal whereby you provide the next generation with more opportunities than you had yourself. I would love to see a higher education policy that reflected this philosophy. One that accepts the wider society benefits of a good education, and with it the costs. Universities too should take more responsibility. Learning from their US cousins, they need to become much better at commercialising the significant intellectual property they own and invest in more sophisticated Alumni programmes. In fact the only people who should be worrying less about university financing are the students themselves – they, after all, should have other things on their mind.

A Welfare Cap is the right way forward – but not in isolation.

Tonight it is all about the Welfare cap – so let’s start with the facts –
What is being proposed? – That no household can claim more than £26,000 per year in state benefits (That is the equivalent of an annual salary of about £35,000).

Who does it affect? – The Department of Work and Pensions calculate it will affect 67,000 households, or 90,000 adults and 220,000 children. Obviously there is a sliding scale here – with 45% losing up-to £30 per week, 26% losing £50 to £100, 12% losing £100 to £150 and 17% losing over £150 per week.

How much will it save? – DWP figures suggest it could save upwards of £120million per year.
What about the why? – The coalition government offer two reasons. First, to help cut the deficit. Secondly, to bring fairness back into the benefits system.

Let’s deal with dealing with the deficit first – £120milion might sound a lot, but it is not even pennies, when it comes to the nations finances. Assuming every bit of the projected saving is made (which is unlikely) they will reduce the budget deficit by less than 0.0008%. Put this in the context of the 133,000 children who are at risk of being moved below the poverty line as a result of this measure and it doesn’t feel anywhere near enough of a saving.

So that leaves us with fairness as the real driver for this change. Certainly at first glance it seems fair – why should those people who are not working be able to live in a way that many ‘hard-working’ families simply cannot? It is a compelling argument. More so when you think it is those same families whose taxes are paying for others not to work. As an aside – in 1958 Social Security spending equalled 6% of national income, in 2010 it was 11.9% (though it actually peaked at 13.1% in the dying days of the last Tory government) – this kind of upward trend is simply not sustainable, regardless of where your political allegiances lie. So, it turns out I agree with a cap at some level. Progress indeed.

The next question is how much? The median household income in 2011, after tax, was £24,000 – so again the government figures look broadly fair. My problem is that it is just too general. Mean household income in London is 50% more than in the North East. Average rental for a 3-bedroom house in Buckinghamshire or Essex is double that of Cumbria (London is, on average 6-times more expensive). With the major household cost fluctuating so much, how can it be fair to introduce a UK-wide cap? Why not an overall cap on all other benefits, with regional allowances for housing benefit? That is something I could definitely sign-up to.

We have a cap, we have made it fair – so what about exceptions? Take two civil servants, with a school-age daughter, living and working in London on a total household income of about £35,000 per year. They are managing OK when disaster strikes – thanks to swingeing government cuts they are both made redundant. Their ‘generous’ severance package keeps them going for a few months, but it is now 3 months on and there isn’t much work for former faceless bureaucrats. They live in a modest 3-bed semi in an average part of London – it costs £3000 per month just for the rent. Even with regional adjustments the housing benefit doesn’t cover it – do you want to tell them they have to move, or shall I? With fairness should also come patience – these people surely come under the ‘hard-working’ banner, so my suggestion is that we give them a year’s grace to find their feet, before slowly starting to reduce their benefit down to below the cap. This gives them time to readjust, potentially re-train and also ensures their daughter has the home and educational stability that is so important in terms of her development.

So, there we go – this blog has done its job. I am much clearer on what I stand for:
- An overall benefits cap, broadly in-line with the government proposals.
- It should be both index-linked and the housing benefit should be regionally adjusted in line.
- There should be a grace-period of 12months to ensure that those newly falling out of work can continue to live in their current house whilst seeking work and/or re-training.

But wait a minute; if we are doing this to ensure fairness, then it has to be balanced.
I don’t have time to get started on the multi-million pound bonuses of the UK’s top CEOs and senior-execs, or how the same group of people’s pay rose by 49% in the last year alone, whilst the average value of their companies dropped by 5.5%? But just some food for thought before I go to bed. The total saving of the above plans are in the region of £120million per year. Benefit fraud costs the UK taxpayer £1.5billion per year. Tax evasion (illegally not paying tax) costs us another £15billion. Tax avoidance (whereby companies and some v.rich individuals use loopholes in the law to minimise their tax burden – strictly speaking legal in the UK, but morally dubious) costs us a further £20-£25billion per year. Wouldn’t the government have more credibility in it actions if its first target were to significantly reduce these figures?

The beginning of the end for Ed?

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More bleak news for Ed Milibamd this morning as The Guardian splashes with a report from Shadow Minister and ‘leading Labour thinker’ Gregg McClymont stating Labour are at risk of falling into a Tory trap and losing the next election. The story itself is pretty lightweight, but the implication that Miliband Junior is following a core votes strategy is damaging, as is the fact the paper has now led with two anti-Miliband stories in three days. Once is careless, twice might be seen as some sort of conspiracy.

The tragic thing is, if you get the chance to listen to a set-piece speech from Ed you’ll soon realise that a core-votes strategy is the last-thing on his mind. He has a clear vision of what the post-banking crisis should look like. The need for a new approach to the economy and society, a more responsible capitalism. This isn’t just about bashing bankers, it is an opportunity to put fairness back at the heart of what we do. His problem? No-one is listening.

Eddites will tell you it is virtually impossible to get the public to listen so soon after defeat at the polls. I don’t buy it. The coalition is not the landslides of 79 or 97 and the public remain unconvinced of Cameron (though considering the year he has had, he should get some credit for the current polls). The public are looking about for an alternative, the trouble is they are not seeing anything they can buy into.

Appointing Tom Baldwin as Comms Director earlier this year certainly tightened up the messaging, helping to make the outfit more tactically adept and scoring a couple of small wins in the process. What he has been unable to do is develop a narrative. For this you need an underlying strategy, and if Ed and his team have one it seems to be very underlying indeed.

So, we enter 2012, with the polls in the same place as a year ago and the public still unaware of who Ed is and what he stands for (desperate Daily Mirror pieces aside), except now we are a year on, the party is getting restless and even the most benign of centre-left papers is beginning to turn against him. The next few months are a huge test for Ed and, in particular Tim Livesey, his new Chief of Staff. Can they develop a winning narrative that resonates with the public, and if so how quickly? The question is – is it already too late?