Labour MP says leader’s election strategy is suicide
ED Miliband was facing turmoil last night after one of his own MPs condemned his strategy as ‘suicidal’ and a Labour parliamentary candidate was secretly recorded describing his leadership as ‘dodgy’ and ‘incoherent’.
The outbreak of open dissent – just days before crunch elections – followed a week of mounting panic in the party after the Conservatives recorded a lead in the polls for the first time in more than two years.
Labour MPs have been privately briefing this weekend that if Mr Miliband does not ‘show progress’ in Thursday’s local and European election results, they would collectively break ranks to call for a mass shake-up of strategy and personnel. The scale of the nervousness is revealed in a public broadside from Rochdale MP Simon Danczuk, who urged Mr Miliband to abandon his strategy of ‘relying on the Government’s unpopularity’ to win next year’s General Election.
‘Sooner or later the Tories were always going to get their act together. Now we all need to up our game,’ Mr Danczuk said. The MP added that the party will not win ‘by relying on a core vote and a few disgruntled Liberals’ – which he described devastatingly as ‘a suicidal strategy’.
His remarks are a thinly-veiled attack on the plan advocated by elections supremo Douglas Alexander to aim for a modest 35 per cent share of the vote at next year’s poll – and hope that the inbuilt advantage the party receives from the electoral system delivers a Commons majority.
Mr Danczuk’s fears were echoed by Tristan Osborne, a Labour parliamentary candidate in Chatham and Aylesford, who was recorded making critical remarks about Mr Miliband’s election strategy.
‘The machine is not functioning in any capacity,’ Mr Osborne was taped saying at a £100-a-ticket Labour fundraising event held on Tuesday. ‘We
‘The machine is not functioning’
need to be appealing to the aspirational Southern voter. The current strategy doesn’t... indicate that we are winning over that type of support.’
He added: ‘I’m fearful,’ citing a ‘dodgy campaign’.
He also said: ‘The economy is picking up. That reinforces the narrative that they (the Conservatives) are doing well, and there’s sod all anyone can do about that.’
The party’s meltdown started after two polls at the start of the week gave the Tories a rare lead over Labour, causing pundits to slash the chances of Labour securing a majority.
It coincided with the arrival in the UK of David Axelrod, the former Barack Obama election guru who has been hired by Mr Miliband on a reported £250,000 contract to turn his fortunes around.
The strategist – known as ‘The Axe’ – gave a short speech to the shadow Cabinet, held meetings with key frontbenchers including Harriet Harman and addressed party staff about campaigning techniques. But sources say Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls was the only senior Labour frontbencher not to ask a question when Mr Axelrod was introduced to the shadow Cabinet. Mr Balls has been engaged in a thinly disguised turf war with Mr Alexander, who is credited with persuading the US elections guru to work for Labour.
One source said: ‘Everybody asked Axelrod a question – everybody, that is, except Ed Balls. It wasn’t hard to read between the lines.’
But The Mail on Sunday also understands there was irritation that Mr Axelrod was only able to take questions for just over half an hour.
One senior Labour MP warned: ‘We are staying quiet until Thursday’s results, which have to show progress. If we lose seats then we are not on course to win the Election, and we will need to speak out. Miliband and Balls are becoming as dysfunctional as Blair and Brown, and Balls and Alexander loathe each other.’