You made me a Lord, Ed, but even I think it's time you grew up and became a REAL leader: A damning verdict from a key Labour adviser



Disappointing: Ed Miliband made inspiring pledges when he was made leader but has failed to keep them

It's the dog days of summer and things don’t feel quite right. England won the Ashes but I couldn’t help wishing that Stuart Broad had walked in the First Test. The Glasman family couldn’t afford to go on holiday this year so the children are bored. The heatwave didn’t last and the nights are getting cold. Gareth Bale doesn’t want to play for Spurs any more.

It’s the silly season and the usual questions are being asked about Ed Miliband’s leadership. Just as the Government went on holiday, so did the Opposition. And when we should have been kicking an absentee landlord of a Coalition, the few of us Labour people left behind started an argument with each other. By the time the party conferences begin it may all be barely a memory.

And yet. There is a problem. It hovers like a cloud over the beach. You wish it wasn’t there but it’s not going away and it’s getting darker. That problem is that the crash of 2008 revealed, like a lightning bolt in a thunderstorm, that we were too dependent on finance and the state, that we had invested in debt rather than value and celebrated entitlement rather than responsibility.

Of the £1.6 trillion invested in the British economy between 1997 and 2007, 81 per cent was in financial loans and mortgages. Debt was the big growth area of our economy. That is the legacy of Thatcher, Major and – we Labour politicians must be honest – Blair and most particularly Brown.

This Tory-Lib Dem Government with its liberal economic policies is offering more of the same. The failed banking institutions that caused the crash have been given even more mind-boggling amounts of public money by the bankers’ friend George Osborne in the form of quantitative easing.

We need a politics that is equal to the challenge we face and we’re not getting it. Not from the Conservatives and, seemingly, not from Labour either. Nowhere is this more evident than on the economy. The Conservatives have never been able to extend their love of tradition, virtue and duty into the economy. That won’t change. In the marketplace, selfishness is all that is required. The Coalition Government cannot challenge the banks or the utility companies because they cannot deal with the realities of debt. Underwriting another property boom is their only growth strategy. It does not generate value.



When Ed Miliband was elected, many people in the Labour Party, including me, were inspired by his pledge to turn his back on the failed policies and philosophy of New Labour. His promise to attack ‘predator’ capitalists struck a chord with millions. But he has not followed his instincts, which were so sound.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, extended a challenge as well as an invitation when he laid out his vision for how the Church of England can put Wonga out of business. I applaud him for taking this lead, but it is the kind of vision we need from Ed Miliband. Labour needs to join forces with the Church, unions and local authorities in creating new financial institutions that can offer non-usurious credit to local people and offer relief from the misery of an unrepayable debt. Labour cannot brush aside the fact that some voters blame the last Labour Government for Britain’s indebtedness. Ed Miliband must ignore siren voices in the party who say debt does not matter.

Debt is not good for family life. It creates rancour, and when there is no way of working yourself out of it, lives fall apart.

Only Labour has the traditions and values that can serve the country at this time of need. Yet the current Labour leadership seems to need reminding of these traditions and values.

We forget at our peril that it was the Labour movement that built the burial societies so that the poor would not be abandoned to a pauper’s grave. People clubbed together and founded building societies and mutual societies so that misfortune did not turn into catastrophe.

Our values were respectability, loyalty, courage and, above all, work. Labour. We cared about it so much we named our party after it. These are the values we need now to rebuild trust and renew a sense of virtue and vocation in the economy and in politics. The Labour Party’s future lies in reclaiming its inheritance. Our tradition is our future.

At the very time when Labour should be showing the way ahead, it gives the impression of not knowing which way to turn. When the Labour battle bus should be revving up, it is parked in a lay-by of introspection. It is a time for Ed Miliband to show he is a grown-up politician big enough to lead this country. There is an open goal here for Labour. But if we are going to start scoring and winning, then Labour must learn to be a partner and friend to the good once more.

Labour has made a grave error by allowing the Tories to falsely claim the mantle of the party of family and responsibility. We must support people in honouring their family obligations to their parents, children, and to each other. There must be ‘incentives to virtue’ so that those who give are rewarded and recognised.

Far from being a stubborn defender of the old-style ‘something for nothing’ welfare state, Labour must champion a new system, maintaining an essential safety net, but building a new generation of good, solid ‘mutuals’, owned and controlled by the people who pay into the National Insurance system. We need to highlight the connection between a debt-fuelled economy, stagnant living standards and the cruel indifference of the Tories to the realities of family life by proposing a constructive alternative.

There are great things going on in the Labour Party. I applaud Ed Miliband’s stance on reforming the party’s links with the trades unions and the superb work going on in party organisation and the policy review. All of this will count for nothing, however, unless there is clarity on what went wrong under the last Labour Government and what we now need to do to make things better.

Some of the ingredients – regional banks, vocational colleges, the Living Wage, an interest-rate cap, worker representation – are in place. But they are far short of a story of national renewal built upon family, place and work. These should be the cornerstones of the Britain that Ed Miliband will rebuild as Prime Minister. People want to know what Labour is about. It is time Ed Miliband got out of his political lay-by and told them.

Lord Glasman is founder of the Labour Party's 'Blue Labour' group

