Why is Miliband not cruising to victory?
If Labour fails, it may have to do with its leader’s caution. Miliband has matched an eloquent case for change with overly meagre remedies
Yesterday, Britain went go to the polls to decide the scrapyard election. A blinkered campaign belying the great issues at stake ends in a detritus of ruptured faith, shattered promises and a breaking constitution. Unless voters defy expectations and produce a clear outcome, battle will commence today over who has the right to rebuild Britain.
Prime Minister David Cameron moved first, letting it be known that he would act quickly to stay in office if he failed to secure an outright win. Nick Clegg has indicated that he would gladly back him, as long as the Tories get the most seats. Faced with the prospect of a retread Coalition, Labour plans to rely on paragraph 2.12 of the Cabinet Manual. This clause stipulates that, in the absence of an overall majority, an incumbent government is entitled to test whether it can command the confidence of the House of Commons. Should that prove impossible, then the prime minister is obliged to resign forthwith. Even if he falls short on seats, Miliband is resolved to signal his opposition to a Conservative legislative programme. Assuming that he looks “most likely” to get the backing of the House, he hopes to become the leader of a minority government without doing any deal with the Scottish National Party (SNP).
Given the social and economic difficulties that Britain faces, the question is why Miliband is not the clear favourite to win tomorrow. It is true that he might hope for outright victory but for the surge in SNP support caused, in part, by a spasm of revulsion against mainstream politics. The challenge posed by insurgents cries out for Miliband’s initial vision of social democracy reimagined for an ice age of frozen hopes and budgets.
Few leaders would have been rash enough to commission the stone plinth of pledges derided as the heaviest suicide note in history. In private, Miliband defends his monolith, pointing out that his promises are now familiar to millions more voters. If Labour is condemned to political death today, the party’s tombstone blues may be caused not by Miliband’s Moses complex but by his caution. Part Prufrock and part seer, he has matched an eloquent case for change with overly meagre remedies. For example, Labour’s mansion tax is less fair (and potentially far less lucrative) than reforming council tax bands. Raising money for the NHS and social care for the elderly requires questions that no aspiring prime minister cares to ask or answer about who should pay.
Erring on the side of parsimony
Miliband, though less brutal than Cameron, has also been disingenuous about funding public services and opaque about what he would cut. Far from being profligate, he has erred on the side of parsimony. But other issues are at stake tomorrow. Badly as Miliband has been wrong-footed by the SNP, Cameron’s decision to alienate Scotland for political gain is more dangerous to a fraying Union. Britain might well sleepwalk out of Europe, to its incalculable cost, under a Cameron and Clegg coalition. Under Miliband there would be no referendum. On climate change and Britain’s role in the world, he has made belated efforts to fill the vacuum left by the prime minister. He may yet do better than Cameron tomorrow but, if all else fails, he has one last card to play. Should Labour fall short of a majority, Miliband will not go quietly. Instead he is determined to assert what he sees as his constitutional right and duty.
Miliband has made clear that he would not preside over a Bankers’ Britain that venerates and safeguards the very wealthy. Long ago, Neil Kinnock issued a warning that bears paraphrasing. If Cameron wins tomorrow, do not be poor, do not be frail, do not be young, do not grow old. Do not be hungry or disadvantaged or disabled, or you are liable to bear the cost of balancing the nation’s books. Labour can promise no easy conduit to a society in which compassion co-exists with economic competence. Still less can it be relied upon to fix our broken electoral system, shore up the Union or reforge Britain’s niche in a fluid world. But in the breaker’s yard of this election, Ed Miliband stands the greatest chance of salvaging a better future from the wreckage.