There’s as much gelignite as gelatine in Michael Gove’s article about Ed Miliband

By Peter Hoskin
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There is, as Harriet Baldwin suggests, an air of humour about Michael Gove’s article for the Telegraph this morning. Its headline, after all, reads “Ed Miliband is a blancmange in a hurricane”.

But don’t miss the core of gelignite behind all the windswept gelatine: Mr Gove is launching a serious and considered attack on the Labour leader. In fact, it satisfies three of the weightier prescriptions in Andy Coulson’s GQ article from yesterday:

Expose Ed Miliband’s weaknesses. Is the Tory leadership going personal on Ed Miliband? To some extent, yes: this article exists to give him a shoeing. But the personal stuff is leavened in two ways. First, by Mr Gove’s sprightly prose, which creates a sense of mischief more than malice. And then by the fact that the personal attacks have a political basis. Mr Miliband is a “blancmange in a hurricane” because he is not “clearly defined”, which is in turn because he lacks “a programme of concrete policies”. The thing about this attack, however many times we’ve heard it before, is that some Labour MPs may agree with it. Coupled with Mr Miliband’s poll ratings, there are some who will think their leader is a drag on their party’s chances, not a boon for them.

Sell the Coalition’s good work. Labour’s lack of concrete policies is here set of against the Coalition’s own, rather rich, record. As Mr Gove himself puts it:

“Contrast this with a Government – and PM – that has reduced the deficit, made the tax system more competitive, reformed the welfare state, cut net migration, reduced crime, made the NHS more efficient and compassionate, secured progress on the EU budget, repatriated European powers, freed millions from dictatorship, created a million new private sector jobs, presided over the largest number of business start-ups in a 12-month period in recorded history, restored rigour to GCSEs and A-levels, created 2,000 academy schools and ensured that no one on benefits earns more than the average wage.”

We are now, as I’ve said before, in the phase of Government when the incumbents cannot just blame the last lot, but must also point to achievements that have already been made, and those that are yet to come.

Sow division where you can. In GQ, Mr Coulson advised the Tory leadership to aggravate any tension between Eds Miliband and Balls. There’s a touch of that in Mr Gove’s article – he talks of “Miliband’s passivity in the face of his shadow chancellor’s operating style” – but he goes further in pointing out wider divisions in the Labour Party. Halfway through the article, he writes “there are substantial figures in Labour’s ranks who are capable of fleshing out worthwhile alternative courses,” before adding, “But, at the moment, they are on the margins.” And, at its end, he names names: “Jon Cruddas and Maurice Glasman are gifted, fascinating thinkers, but are held in scorn by Balls and the Brownite restorationists.”

Europe, public spending, union power grabs...Labour have plenty of splits of their own

By Mark Wallace
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The media is intent on a "Tory splits" narrative. Given the obsessive focus on any hint of disagreement on the blue side of the House, it is surprising that there has been so little reporting of Labour's splits.

They do have them - three in the last four days, in fact. Here they are:

The EU

Yesterday, various figures from the left and right of the Labour Party launched Labour for a Referendum - only days after Ed Miliband publicly rejected the idea of giving the people a say on Britain's EU membership. The rebels aren't just eurosceptic "usual suspects" like Kate Hoey, they include Brussels fans like former Europe Minister Keith Vaz.

The Sun is starting to shine on Labour

By Peter Hoskin
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Rachel Reeves has an article explaining Labour’s 10p tax policy in today’s Sun. “So what?” you might think, “isn’t this what shadow ministers do?”

But there’s still something striking about this article in itself. Consider where it appears: the Sun, a newspaper that might have cause to be unfriendly towards Labour after the phone hacking scandal. And consider the fact that Ed Miliband also wrote a piece for them in January. This was the first time he’d done so for around two years. The pieces, as another Labour leader once put it, are in flux.

LabourList’s Mark Ferguson—one of the smartest Labour writers in the Westminster typing pool—noted the significance of Ed Miliband’s Sun article at the time. It could be, he suggested, part of an effort to turn “Red Ed” into “Everyman Ed”: a tribune of the people reaching out the people in the sorts of publications the people actually read. Rachel Reeve’s article today can be seen as a continuation of that process.

This is all part of what the Fabians’ Marcus Roberts has identified, in a recent blog-post, as “Labour’s new ‘Blue Collar’ politics”. I’d encourage you to read the entire post, but these passages are particularly pertinent for Conservatives, whether you agree with them or no’:

“Politically, it offers a response, just in the pre-Budget nick of time, to the growing threat of ‘blue collar Toryism’ or ‘Little Guy Conservatism’ espoused by serious long term thinkers on the Right like Tim Montgomerie, Robert Halfon and Jesse Norman.  But their prospectus for a Tory Party that cares more for middle earners then the 1% has of course an obvious weakness; whatever good they proscribe, Labour can likely do it better. By amending and adapting smart Tory thinking on the squeezed middle, Miliband broadens his One Nation brand.

But the differentiation with the Tories still matters of course and this is where Labour policy is particularly ingenious. Payment for the 10p cut through the mansions tax substantiates voters pre-existing belief that Labour not the Tories is the party that best answers the vital pollsters question: ‘who cares about people like you’. And at last Labour activists have a policy that they can explain on the doorstep without needing to reach for some think tank’s definition of ‘predistribution’.”

It will be worth keeping tabs on whether Labour continue to try to outflank the Tory leadership on this ground. Indeed, one of the items in ConservativeHome’s recent “Little Guy Conservatism” series was Harriet Baldwin’s struggle for English votes for English laws – part of a broader theme of “Englishness” that Labour’s policy chief Jon Cruddas is also keen to explore. Don’t be surprised to see an article by him in the Sun, any day now.

Five things we’ve learnt about Ed Miliband’s Labour from their Manchester conference

By Peter Hoskin
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Labour’s five-day jamboree ends today. There will be a closing speech by Harriet Harman at lunchtime, as well as some prior talks, before everyone leaves Manchester to the Greatest Football Team in the World, and decamps to their constituencies and to London. So apologies if this quick list of the things we’ve learnt from the Labour conference is a little premature, but I can’t see things changing much this morning. Here goes:

1) In  terms of presentation, Labour are turning blue. In my ConHome column on Tuesday, I wrote that the most important aspect of the Labour conference was how “Ed Miliband’s party is straying onto territory usually occupied by the Conservatives” — and that was even before the “One Nation” speech that Mr Miliband delivered later that day. From the emphasis on property ownership to Yvette Cooper’s claim that Labour are “now the party of policing”, from the rediscovered patriotism to the blue backdrop of the main stage, there appeared to be a concerted effort to broaden the party’s appeal rightwards. “Red Ed no more,” was the message. “Vote for Blue Ed.”

2) In terms of substance, Labour are staying red. But look beyond the performances and the stage lighting, and the (few) policies that Labour are espousing are still dripping red. There’s the example I used in my column: the party’s drive towards property ownership is based around more and more spending, and implicitly critiques Thatcher-era policies such as the Right to Buy. But we saw it too in those moments when Labour’s speakers tore up the Tory copybook, such as when Andy Burnham railed against “privatisation” in the NHS. Some of this is Labour staying on their comfort ground but, to my eyes, some of it is more than that. They’re trying to create a new generation of Labour voters by wrapping left-wing policies in centrist, or even right-wing, language.