Ed Milliband – PM

It’s dawn on 8th May 2015. Ed Miliband has just returned from his Doncaster North constituency to accept the Queen’s request that he forms a government. He is then driven to No.10 where he addresses the country.

‘We fought this election as One Nation Labour and we will govern as One Nation Labour’, he triumphantly announces. He thanks his campaign team and family, before promising to fight for jobs and growth and to create a united country, before quoting from an 18th century poem that he feels ‘captures the moment’.

It’s a scenario that some people will react to with utter dread and despair, others with an optimistic cheer, many with an indifferent shrug.

It is also a scenario that also seems likely.

On Thursday 2nd May UKIP rugby tackled the coalition government from behind, fatally wounding the Tories, and squashing the Lib Dems to death. Lord Ashcroft’s March poll seems to be spot on in predicting that Labour would take advantage of UKIP’s tackle, by grabbing the ball and scoring a try unopposed in 2015, with a majority of 84 seats, or yards I should say. The man running to that try-line, celebrating with the crowd and shouting the One Nation slogan, is Ed Miliband.

What sort of leader will Ed be?

One of his most outspoken supporters is Neil Kinnock, and for good reason. Like him, Ed has had the unfortunate portrayal of someone who doesn’t believe in anything, and who will go to Prime Minister’s Questions each Wednesday to disagree with whatever the government has done during the week, whether it is on the NHS, Europe, or school dinners in Derbyshire.

Yet fortunately for Labour, Ed also has similarities to leaders who have actually won elections. He’s a modern day Clement Attlee brand of do-gooder, the former PM being a crossword expert, and Ed able to solve a Rubik’s cube in 90 seconds. He’s the man who has brought John Major’s soapbox into the 21st century, stepping on it to talk directly to voters in Lincoln, Cambridge and Chorley. He and his party have adopted a similar campaign strategy to that of Obama 2012, using Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to connect with as many people as possible and to build a strong base of support well before 2015, especially among the younger generation.

The notion of One Nation Labour is also well thought out. Indeed the most popular Prime Ministers through historical rankings, Churchill and Attlee, both faced major crises. People tend to underestimate the long-term extent of our current economic and social crises, from which a Churchill or Attlee spirit of a unified country is certainly necessary.

The problem for Miliband is that he is a good opposition leader. Good opposition leaders in the past, in particular Tony Blair, tend to go into government with nothing more than eye-catching slogans and good intentions, and live their lives at No.10 like they’re still in opposition. The One Nation promise to create a fairer society, despite having a pleasant sound to it, seems a familiar strategy of trying to please everyone, without a clear vision of how to deal with our national crisis.

And it is that term, vision, that will dominate the next parliament after Labour have won their majority.

The Lib Dems will be a dead party with no more than 15 MPs after the electorate punishes them for having no vision. After a resounding defeat, David Cameron’s vision of re-negotiating our relationship with Europe whilst gradually building up ties with emerging economic superpowers and seeking to establish ‘The Big Society’, will also be dead. The new feisty Labour MPs of 2015, most of who are reported to have strong links to the Unions, will pressure Ed to establish a hard-line leftist vision.

With it emerging that Miliband recently had a meeting with Respect MP George Galloway, and the likelihood of the Tories having to form an alliance with UKIP after the election, the 2015-2020 parliament will be the most colourful for a long time. Outspoken politicians such as Galloway and Nigel Farage will slug it out over the despatch box, a sense of urgency about our national crisis will finally reverberate around Whitehall, and British politicians will have opinions once again.

Well, that’s what I predict anyway…

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(Header image courtesy of jamesstubbsphotography, Image 1)