Miliband energises the party faithful
Addressing the Labour party conference on Tuesday afternoon, Ed Miliband delivered a passionate speech, even throwing in the occasional policy idea, that went down a storm amongst the party faithful. One policy in particular, the proposed energy price freeze, caught the commentators’ and delegates’ imagination. With this one announcement, Miliband was seen as giving his clearest indication yet of what could be expected if he becomes prime minister, that big business will be picking up the tab under his administration. Socialism, the media hailed, was making a comeback.
One policy doesn’t make a manifesto or an election winning strategy though. For all the style of the speech, the question of how Miliband will make things better remains largely unanswered – the eye-catching energy price freeze, scrapping the bedroom tax and increasing free child care won’t make Britain better by themselves, nor do they herald Labour’s full-scale return to socialism.
Amongst the unanswered questions from this conference remains what a Labour government would do about public spending and the deficit. The message from Ed Balls during his speech was that tough choices needed to be made, and that Labour would “have to govern with less money around,” also admitting that cuts would have to be made. What these tough choices will be was not fully set out, though Balls did say that some of the coalition’s policies, such as the benefits cap and the child benefits cuts, would be kept. With a notable lack of concrete spending commitments from Miliband himself, a Labour government’s economic plan appears to remain a version of the coalition’s current austerity policy. Not an election winning narrative by itself.
Brighton 2013 might be remembered amongst the delegates as the year that Miliband gave “that speech”. However, rhetoric and a short-term price freeze will not lead to economic growth in itself, nor do much to enhance Labour’s economic credibility. There remains a lot to do for Miliband before the election, and further choices to be articulated. For now, though, his style has at least brought greater hope to his party that it can win in 2015.