Labour leadership: it’s so exciting
It isn’t fashionable to care about the Labour leadership race. But to quote that great soothsayer of popular culture Adam Ant “We don’t follow fashion, that’d be a joke”. Most people yawn, turn away or say something like “but God its been so boring” when asked about the hustings. And that’s just journalists.
The contest has gone on for so long, and the arguments have been so repetitive that even David Miliband merrily says he could easily recite the other candidates’ speeches and knows all their answers before they’ve said them. But now it is crunch time, and it matters. Hugely.
What happens this Saturday afternoon will largely determine whether Labour returns as a fighting force ready to win the next election, dribbles on arguing about the best way to oppose the coalition or spins off into madness and obscurity.
What makes it so exciting as we get to the finish line is the fact we have no real idea what is going to happen. There could yet be an “Iain Duncan Smith moment” with jaws dropping open when Andy Burnham is declared the duly elected leader.
David and Ed Miliband could start kicking each other’s shins in bitter recrimination. Of course most of the votes have already been cast. The deadline for Labour party members is Wednesday and for trades union members tomorrow.
Labour’s voting system is so bizarre that some people have two, three or even more votes each, all of different weight within the electoral college. MP’s can vote as a member of the Parliamentary Labour Party, as a trades union member and as a member of an affiliated organisation like the Fabian Society too. And some MP’s who nominated one candidate have been switching to others in the final stages : with Ed Miliband’s camp apparently playing a last minute game of bluff trying to spook impressionable MP’s worried about backing the wrong brother.
We also have no way of knowing whether union members are following the instincts of their bosses. So despite the fact Ed Miliband has got the bosses of Unite, Unison and the GMB David Miliband’s supporters claim he has greater support among the membership. For those of us who remember that rousing (if incomprehensible on paper) speech by John Prescott in 1993 backing the late John Smith’s call for ‘one member, one vote’ it all seems rather confusing.
As for the big announcement on Saturday afternoon the Labour Party already seems to have missed a big opportunity. Instead of a great stage managed event in the conference hall with cheering crowds, music, lights, streamers and balloons the five contenders will line up in the cold and wet outside Manchester Central Convention Complex to hear who has won.
Their speech will be in the open air and largely delivered to the media. The new leader, whoever it is, will have to quickly get to grips with a lot of things. If David Miliband wins things are relatively predictable. His first big task is to decide who will be shadow chancellor, and although he has recently been heaping praise on Ed Balls, and it could be a unifying thing within the party to give him the job, it remains difficult to see how he can do that when the two men fundamentally disagree over spending cuts and reducing the deficit.
Liam Byrne would have been the obvious choice in a David Miliband shadow cabinet but his “there is no money left” joke on leaving office seems to have done him genuine and long term damage. So the job could yet go to Yvette Cooper, who has taken the same line as her husband but with a much lower profile, or even Ed Miliband.
If the younger of the Miliband of Brothers wins however his first task could be deciding what to do about David.
Although the elder brother has repeatedly said he would serve under Ed it remains hard to see him wanting to stay there for long. As he has constantly said he gave up the chance of one of the biggest jobs in world politics (being the EU’s Foreign Minister) in order to lead the Labour Party, and when he took that decision he clearly believed the leadership job was in the bag.
The two brothers will also want their fraternal relationship back after a tense few months, and given they disagree now on a fair amount from foreign to economic policy they might both think it best if David gives Ed some space.
So much is at stake, and this Saturday is just the start. It really is very exciting, whatever the dominant yawns from the mainstream media suggest.