Are you calling me a liar, Mr Miliband?
You know I heard you say ‘economy will fall off a cliff’ fumes ex-Mayor’s partner... so be a man and own up to it
ED MILIBAND faced renewed pressure last night to admit he said Labour knew a year in advance that the 2008 economic crash was coming – but kept quiet about it.
The challenge came from his former close friend Carolyne Hunter, partner of Martin Winter, the ex-Labour Mayor of Doncaster who first made the claim in last week’s Mail on Sunday.
‘He [Miliband] cannot deny it because he and I both know he said it,’ said Ms Hunter. ‘If he does, he is calling me a liar and we both know he cannot do that. He should be a man and admit it is true.’
She threw down the gauntlet after this newspaper’s serialisation of a book by Mr Winter based on the couple’s close relationship with Miliband as they helped him become the MP for Doncaster.
Miliband lived with the couple in the run-up to the 2005 General Election and shared secrets about the last Labour Government – as well as getting involved in a number of Mr Bean-type scrapes, including setting fire to an office carpet.
In his book, Fallout, Winter claims to reveal ‘the real Ed Miliband’.
In one of the most dramatic disclosures, Mr Winter said Miliband told him in October 2007 – after Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s on-off decision over calling a snap Election – that Labour had wanted to go to the polls because it believed ‘the economy was about to fall off a cliff’. The crash did not happen until a year later in October 2008. When this newspaper put the claim to Miliband last week, his spokesman said it was ‘ancient history’.
But at no stage did he say that it was untrue.
Now Ms Hunter, mother of Mr Winter’s three grown-up children and who joined the Labour Party when she was 18, has fuelled the row. She maintains she witnessed Miliband say it and last night called on him to ‘have the honour and decency’ to admit it.
Ms Hunter, a project manager, said: ‘I did everything for him when he lived in our house, bailed him out of scrapes, cooked for him, sorted his washing, dressed him, everything. He owes it to me to tell the truth. If he won’t, it proves he cannot be trusted.’
She recalled when Miliband came to their house and said Labour knew the economy was ‘about to fall off a cliff’. She said it was shortly after the 2007 Labour conference when Gordon Brown was enjoying a ‘political honeymoon’ after succeeding Tony Blair as Prime Minister just months earlier.
Labour encouraged speculation of a snap Election – but then abandoned it at the last minute after a Tory surge in the polls. Brown’s reputation never recovered.
At the time, no one suggested Labour had wanted to go early because it knew the economy was heading for the rocks, though in hindsight there were reasons to be worried about the economy.
US banks were in trouble, and in September 2007 the first signs of the impending collapse of Britain’s Northern Rock were there. As a senior Minister, Miliband, an economist, would have had access to confidential information.
It was not until August 2008 that Chancellor Alistair Darling became the first senior Minister to admit that a crash was looming.
Ms Hunter recalled her shock the
day Miliband visited her house in October 2007 and told her and Mr Winter that an economic crisis was coming – and that was why he had wanted an early Election.
He told them while sitting in the playroom of their house, where Miliband had slept when he lodged with them two years earlier.
She said: ‘Martin and I were in the playroom watching TV when Ed knocked at the door.
‘I showed him in and he sat down next to Martin on our big sofa. I was at the other end with my feet up – we are a cuddly family. I remember Ed giving my hand a friendly squeeze and he held it for a while. I didn’t move my hand away because it felt like he needed reassurance.
‘When Martin and Ed started to discuss the recent Labour Party conference, I went to the kitchen and put the kettle on.
‘When I returned and sat down again with them, the discussion was getting heated. Martin was saying, “What on earth is going on, it doesn’t make any sense.”
‘Ed jumped up from the sofa and sat directly in front of Martin on a little padded stool. He was looking directly into Martin’s face. They were so close their knees were almost touching.
‘Ed leaned forward and with a very solemn face said, “What you don’t understand is that the economy is about to fall off a cliff.”
‘He said it was all going to get worse over the next two or three years, Labour would get the blame and that is why they had wanted to go early.
‘It wasn’t until a year later that we realised he had blurted out something he shouldn’t have said. It’s not that I think Labour caused the recession – I have always thought it was a worldwide issue. But now that Mr Miliband has been rumbled, he should own up.’
Ms Hunter said the couple mentioned Miliband’s claim to friends at the time. She was enraged by jibes that their claim could be ignored because both were ‘nobodies’.
She said: ‘Our 19-year-old daughter Marcey said, “Nobodies have no reason to lie, somebodies do.” And she’s right.’
Ms Hunter said she discussed Miliband’s accident-prone nature with his mother on Election night in 2005 after she asked: ‘What has he been like?’
‘I said it had been fine but there had been one or two incidents and that at times it was like having a 14-year-old. She laughed.’
Labour said last night: ‘This story [about the economy] is untrue. It is ridiculous to suggest that Ed or anyone else knew in advance about the financial crash.’