Miliband ‘too Left-wing to win Election’ – Blair
TONY Blair has issued his most withering assessment of Ed Miliband to date, suggesting he will lose the General Election because he has turned labour into a ‘traditional left-wing party’.
The former prime minister indicated he thought Mr Miliband had deserted the political centre ground, leaving the Tories likely to win.
In a thinly veiled swipe at the labour leader, Mr Blair added that winning elections was about ‘not alienating large parts’ of the business community.
His comments are a particularly severe blow to Mr Miliband because they come less than five months before May’s election. They are the latest in a series of attacks by the former premier on the way he is leading the party.
Mr Blair, who led labour to three election victories, was speaking in an interview with the Economist magazine. It described his comments as surprisingly ‘outspoken’.
In the interview, Mr Blair rejected the analysis made by senior labour figures that the financial crisis means British voters want a more left-wing government. Mr Miliband has attacked predatory capitalism and frightened companies with his pledge to freeze energy bills.
Mr Blair said May’s poll could be an election ‘in which a traditional left-wing party competes with a traditional Right-wing party, with the traditional result’. Asked if he meant a Tory win, he said: ‘Yes.’
He denied the political centre ground has shifted as a result of the financial crisis. ‘I see no evidence for that,’ he said. ‘You could argue that it has moved to the Right, not left.’
Mr Blair said the 2010 poll was a ‘classic tax-and- spend election’ which the Tories won.
He added: ‘I am still very much New labour and Ed would not describe himself in that way, so there is obviously a difference there.’ He added: ‘I’m convinced the labour Party succeeds best when it is in the centre ground.’
Asked what lessons he took from winning elections, Mr Blair highlighted ‘not alienating large parts of business, for one thing’.
Earlier this month, he criticised MPs who, like Mr Miliband, have never had a proper job outside politics. He told the New York Times the ‘gene pool’ of political leaders had suffered because too few candidates have ‘real life experience’. He suggested too many graduates went straight from university to a job as a political researcher, before becoming an MP.
A week earlier Mr Blair cast doubt on whether Mr Miliband could win the election, saying labour needed a ‘strong’ leader.
And two months before that, he was forced to deny claims he had told allies that Mr Miliband cannot beat David cameron, because of his failure to connect with voters.
labour declined to respond to the comments, but sources said Mr Blair had said ‘exactly the same thing’ in October. They pointed to comments from the former premier in which he said he wants and expects labour to win under Mr Miliband.
labour’s lead in the polls has evaporated this year. It is now neck-and-neck with the Tories.
In November, Mr Miliband saw off an attempt by backbenchers to oust him in what became known as the ‘bonfire night plot’.
It followed a devastating attack on his l eadership by the New Statesman magazine – the traditional journal of the left – which described him as an ‘ old- style Hampstead socialist’.