John McTernan: Miliband’s moment to cut ties with Labour’s past

In his speech to the party faithful, the Labour leader has given the clearest indication yet of what it is he stands for

“HOW dare he say we’re all in it together?” The passion and the anger were clear when Ed Miliband spat those words out in his conference speech. This assault on David Cameron and George Osborne was warmly received in the hall by party activists. Miliband’s hope is that it will be just as welcome in the country more widely.

This was a cleverly constructed speech. He opened with jokes about himself. His recent marriage. His nose job. His fratricide. All were touched on with lines which, as is traditional in conference speeches, were wincingly lame. Miliband is not going to appear at the Edinburgh Fringe any time soon.

His best jibes were aimed fairly and squarely at the Lib Dems. Commenting on the Boundary Commission proposals to reorganise English constituencies, he observed that Nick Clegg’s seat would be held after 2015 by a Tory, adding tartly: “No change there then.” More pointed still, when addressing the vexed issue of tuition fees, he said: “Now, some of you would like no fees at all. I understand that. But it wouldn’t be responsible to make promises I can’t keep. That’s Nick Clegg’s job.”

But the attacks on Clegg and Cameron were really just lollipops – little presents to please the party. The meat of the speech was the fullest expression of Miliband’s politics that the public have ever heard. It was lumpy at points, as if the content and the language still needed a bit more polishing. But the shape and purpose of Miliband’s argument were very clear.

First, he wants to be seen as himself, not as a continuation or repudiation of previous leaders. He has chosen not to define himself against his party at this conference. No Clause IV moment. No giant row with the unions. Instead he chose to place himself in history. “I’m not Tony Blair,” he said, pausing unfortunately to allow delegates to boo the most successful prime minister that Labour has ever had. “I’m not Gordon Brown either,” he added to utter silence. “I’m my own man.”

He then proceeded to flesh out what that actually means. This was the second and more surprising part of his speech. Without naming her, he said that Margaret Thatcher got some things right: among them council house sales and cutting the top rate of tax. Without naming him, he said that Tony Blair got much right: most noticeably investing in public services.

His point, though, was not to praise them but to bury them. Not in a petty, point-scoring way, but in a major, profound, political way. Ed Miliband has a project. He sees the last 30 years as a specific period in UK politics which has come to an end. Whatever you think about Blair and Thatcher, they framed and addressed the big issues of their times. Privatisation and deregulation by the Tories saved British industry. Investment and reform transformed English public services under Blair, though Scotland wasn’t so lucky. But those debates are closed. What are the issues of the next ten, 20, 30 years?

The third fundamental plank of Miliband’s speech was his vision for Britain. At times it was a bit obvious: strip Sir Fred Goodwin of his knighthood, he demanded. Who, apart from Fred Goodwin’s family, would object to that? Well, me for one, but I think I’m a minority who believes you should only strip honours from traitors to the realm.

At other times it was bracingly direct. Cameron talks of a broken Britain. Miliband rejects this out of hand: “I will never write off whole parts of our country by calling them sick. We are not a country of bad people, but great people.”

This is a real vulnerability of the coalition. They seem to run the country down domestically, while hoping to promote it internationally. Miliband’s aim is to speak out on behalf of the people, but also to speak for them.

The moments his speech really took off were the most populist ones. Miliband has read and understood the Fabian Society’s research on the “squeezed middle”. The Fabians found that a large number of people look up at the CEOs with telephone-number salaries and the bankers with their bonuses, and ask why is it that some people earn much more than others. What’s fair in that? And they look down at benefit recipients and ask why some people get so much for free when they have to work hard for the same thing. These are voters open to populist appeals. But it’s a populism of the left on the one hand, in favour of taxing bankers, and of the right on the other, in favour of beating up benefit cheats. What was revealing about Miliband’s speech was that he was happy to adopt either position. So he attacked irresponsible businesses. Arguing, correctly, that you can be pro-business but against the worst excesses of capitalism. Yet later in the speech he was arguing for greater social responsibility from council tenants: to get a social home you should be in work. This was pure New Labour, pure Hazel Blears – so Miliband may not be Blairite, but he is Blearsite.

The positioning was fascinating, but so was the other policy substance. There was real passion in the argument for promoting manufacturing, and in particular clean, green technology. “Britain’s future,” he argued, “will be built not on credit default swaps but on creative industries. Not low wages and high finance, but low carbon and high tech. Not financial engineering, but real engineering.”

This was an important speech. Not so much for the delivery; he still needs to find the right tone for his oratory to soar. More because this was the first time he set out to the public his personal politics. The speech was peppered with appeals to the public: “you feel”, “your values”. He very rarely turned to the conference and said “we”, “our”. This was his manifesto. For better or for worse it will be what he puts in front of the nation over the coming years. Time will tell if he’s a winner, but if he wins we all now know what he’ll do with power.