In his first speech as Labour leader, Ed Miliband contrasted his optimism with David Cameron’s supposed pessimism, labelled the Iraq war “wrong”, talked about shelf stackers’ wages, railed against infringements of civil liberties and said he came from a generation of school children who’d been taught in temporary classrooms.
Cathy Newman checks it out:
Half the Labour electorate voted for his older brother, so today’s speech gave Ed Miliband the first opportunity to convince them he was the man to lead them back to government. It was a speech short on policy and, his opponents said, a little light on vision. But it did set out where he came from and where he’s going to. So did he trip up along the way?
“I do believe that we were wrong. Wrong to take Britain to war and we need to be honest about that. Wrong because that war was not a last resort, because we did not build sufficient alliances and because we undermined the United Nations.”
Ed Miliband, who wasn’t an MP when Britain invaded Iraq in 2003, spoke out against the war during his leadership campaign, but went further today.
In an interview with the Guardian on 21 May, he said UN weapons inspectors should have been given more time before the invasion, adding: “The combination of not giving the weapons inspectors more time, and then the weapons not being found, I think for a lot of people it led to a catastrophic loss of trust for us, and we do need to draw a line under it.”
But in the interview, Mr Miliband didn’t say the war was wrong: “What I am not saying is that the war was undertaken for the wrong motives, but what I am very clear about is what my position was at the time and the way I look at it in retrospect.”
He’s hardened up his stance today, and the audience here loved it – even if his brother didn’t.
“We must always remember that British liberties were hard fought and hard won over hundreds of years. We should always take the greatest care in protecting them. And too often we seemed casual about them. Like the idea of locking someone away for 90 days – nearly three months in prison – without charging them with a crime.”
Ed Miliband made a surprising defence of civil liberties in his speech – clearly something intended to embarrass the Lib Dems. The use of detention without charge and control orders for terrorist suspects are under review by the coalition government. But privately Lib Dem members of the government say they may have to compromise on this, perhaps accepting that control orders continue if they get a reduction in the current 28 day limit that people can be detained without being charged with an offence. The Lib Dems will be accused of a sell-out on civil liberties, and the new Labour leader is clearly positioning himself to lead the attack.
But his own record on all this is not great. After entering parliament in May 2005, he voted later that year to extend the time limit for detention without charge to 90 days. The government lost that vote. He also backed the introduction of ID cards the same year.
The campaign group Liberty tonight said Mr Miliband was “refreshingly humble on fundamental rights and freedoms” by acknowledging “how wrong” Labour had been on anti-terror powers. It added: “We look forward to helping him ‘reclaim the tradition of liberty’.” Given his track record on civil liberties, he has much to prove.
“I remember a care worker I met in Durham …. she was barely paid the minimum wage – and barely a few pence extra for higher skills. She told me that she thought a fair wage would be £7 an hour because after all she would get that for stacking shelves at the local supermarket.”
Are people who stack shelves in supermarkets paid £7 an hour – more than a pound over the minimum wage? On a typical British high street, retailers pay somewhere between a basic starter’s salary of £5.80 (the minimum wage) to £6.80 an hour.
A spokesman for the shopworkers’ union, Usdaw, told FactCheck: “It is possible that you could be stacking shelves for £7 an hour.”
“I come from a generation that suffered school lessons in Portakabins and crumbling hospitals. I tell you one thing, for the eighteen years they were in power the Tories did nothing to fix the roof when the sun was shining.”
Ed Miliband is 40 and went to state primary and secondary schools in north London from the mid-70s to 1988. Labour were in power from 1974-79 and the Conservatives from 1979-97.
Were there improvements during Labour’s 13 years in power?
Accurate figures about “school lessons in Portakabins” are hard to come by, but the National Union of Teachers said “anecdotally, it is probably correct” that fewer children are taught in temporary classrooms these days than used to be the case.
Partnership for Schools agreed: “Intuitively, that probably is right … because there has been such a large amount of building work that has gone on over the last government.”
“There is a defining difference between us and David Cameron …. and that is optimism. We are the optimists in politics today.”
The climax to Ed Miliband’s speech sounded strangely familiar. Casting Labour as the optimists echoed another young leader’s first speech to conference – David Cameron. In October 2006, the Tory leader urged his party: “Let optimism beat pessimism, let sunshine win the day.”
He continued this theme at the launch of the Tories’ 2010 election campaign, saying on April 6: “Let’s fight for what we believe in. Let’s take the case to the country, to the people of this country, about hope, optimism and change. ”
Some Labour MPs privately noticed similarities in style between Mr Cameron’s first speech and Mr Miliband’s. They comforted themselves that perhaps this was no bad thing, seeing as the Tory leader went on to become prime minister.
Cathy Newman’s verdict:
It’s hard to FactCheck something as nebulous as optimism, but one of Ed Miliband’s senior aides claimed after his speech that progressive parties were inherently more optimistic. It’s certainly true that Tony Blair basked in sunshine when he came to power in 1997 – not a meteorological statement so much as a judgement about the nation’s mood. But that could have as much to do with a large majority as political disposition.
Aside from that, Miliband appears to have avoided policy gaffes, partly because he steered clear of the finer details of policy. Those are all still to be settled. Where the new leader stands on cuts – he says he’ll back “responsible” ones – and how he moves forward with proposals to rein in private sector pay will be FactChecked once further details are announced. You have been warned!
