Labour war on big business

Miliband is expected to use his party conference speech on Wednesday to say he plans to “rip up the rule book” on political relations with business, claiming there is an established order which is no longer on the side of families.

Energy and rail companies are likely to be criticised for “rigging” markets against consumers as Miliband seeks to create a sharp dividing line between himself and Prime Minister David Cameron’s own approach to business.

The Labour leader will turn his fire on plans unveiled by Cameron last week to give the heads of the UK’s top 50 companies an individual hot-line to government ministers, warning that corporate interests are actually “holding people back”.

Arriving in Liverpool yesterday, with his wife Justine and sons Simon and Daniel, Miliband said he was determined to show that he spoke for Britain’s “hard-working families”.

“We are going to take on interests, however powerful,” he said.

“What I’m interested in doing this week and what I’m determined to do is show to Britain’s hard working families that Labour is back as the party of them. Because they are families who are worried about the economy, are seeing their living standards squeezed, and are worried about their kids.”

The marked hardening in tone comes after Miliband improved his leadership credentials earlier this summer when he led calls for resignations at News International, in the wake of the phone hacking scandal.

But his tougher message to business will be controversial, with one senior Labour MP claiming last night that the new leader was turning into a “disaster”.

One poll yesterday found that seven out of ten voters say the party under Miliband is not fit for government. Only 5% described him as a natural leader.

The Miliband approach this week is being compared by some party sources to Tony Blair’s at the 1999 conference, when he hit out against the “forces of conservatism”, saying he wanted his party to become “the new radicals” of British politics.

Yesterday, sources confirmed that Labour will attack the Coalition government for allowing the cost of living to rise through price hikes in items such as train tickets and energy bills. The party will argue that firms which fail to meet pledges on service and price over the course of their franchise should be barred from re-applying for the renewal of their licence.

On energy, Miliband will say that all of the big six energy firms should be forced to pool their energy centrally, a move he claimed will result in lower bills.

Miliband said yesterday: “We are talking about how we are going to take on train companies which are overcharging them [the public] for fares and energy companies that are ripping them off.”

In a pre-conference interview, Miliband says that the last Labour government failed to “change the ethic of the economy”. This, he says, led to a culture of “take-what-you-can, something-for-nothing, the short term, the fast buck”. Labour should now seek to take on “vested interests who think they’re immune from democracy” and who have profited from what has gone before.

Shadow ministers are also expected to take on supermarkets this week. Shadow Cabinet Office Minister Jon Trickett claimed last week that local shops needed “protection” from superstores.

He added: “Labour’s task is to take on the big battalions, wherever they operate in the interests of the majority.”

Miliband has urged the party to use the annual gathering – taking place under the slogan “Fulfilling the Promise of Britain” – to show it has “the confidence to change”.

Around 11,000 activists and 2,000 media are expected in Liverpool for the first Labour autumn conference ever held in the city. Yesterday, a YouGov poll found that 68 per cent of voters believe Labour needs to make major changes to its policies and beliefs if it is to be seen as fit to govern.

Union leaders will use the conference to urge Miliband to back a major spending drive to help public sector pensions and the railways. But Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls appears to have stamped out any likelihood that Labour will change its course on raising public spending.

“Some in the Labour movement, according to their placards, would like us to stop all the cuts. But credibility is based on trust, and trust on honesty. So we must explain that if we had won the last election, we would have faced tough choices on tax and spending too.”

He added: “I believe we can only win public trust by making the public case for a credible and compelling plan that will revive growth, get unemployment falling, take the tough decisions to tackle the deficit in a balanced way and transform our economy for the long term.”