On Thursday, Britain went to the polls to decide the scrapyard election. A blinkered campaign belying the great issues at stake ends in a detritus of ruptured faith, shattered promises and a breaking constitution. Unless voters defy expectations and produce a clear outcome, battle will commence today (Friday) over who has the right to rebuild Britain.
Prime Minister David Cameron moved first, letting it be known that he would act quickly to stay in office if he failed to secure an outright win. Nick Clegg has indicated that he would gladly back him, as long as the Tories get the most seats. Faced with the prospect of a retread Coalition, Labour plans to rely on paragraph 2.12 of the Cabinet Manual. This clause stipulates that, in the absence of an overall majority, an incumbent government is entitled to test whether it can command the confidence of the House of Commons.
Should that prove impossible, then the prime minister is obliged to resign forthwith. Even if he falls short on seats, Miliband is resolved to signal his opposition to a Conservative legislative programme. Assuming that he looks “most likely” to get the backing of the House, he hopes to become the leader of a minority government without doing any deal with the Scottish National Party (SNP).
Uncertainty
In the last hours of the tightest election campaign for a generation, the uncertainty bedevilling all party leaders is masked by the upbeat tone of the closing rallies.
In Brighton on Monday, Miliband shared a platform with his latest celebrity backer, Delia Smith. Recruited by Ed Balls, with whom she shares a passion for Norwich City Football Club, she spoke out for the NHS.
“We have one great institution fighting to save another great British institution,” Miliband told a rapturous audience. While Delia has taught millions of Britons to boil an egg, it is not clear that Miliband is among them. When I met him backstage afterwards, he thought he had one of her books on his kitchen shelf but could not instantly recall making any specific dish.
Cameron, for his part, might be happy to refer the Labour leader to one of Delia’s signature puddings. Nothing would please the PM more than watching his opponent follow the political recipe for the perfect crumble. The Tory operation was predicated on the idea that Miliband was a weak and unbeguiling figure whose campaign would disintegrate to dust. The opposition leader has defied that expectation, finding a voice that Cameron did not anticipate and could not emulate. Away from the oratory and the spotlight, all the party leaders are beyond exhaustion.
After his event with Britain’s favourite cook was over, Miliband picked crisps from a bumper packet with hands shaking from weariness. In public, no leader dares betray fatigue. “Ed is on fire,” says one of many senior Labour figures unexpectedly impressed by his performance.
But elections are won not by stagecraft but through a prospectus of stability, prosperity and hope. Under this government, any benefits of recovery have been excessively tilted towards richer voters, while low-skilled jobs, poor productivity and extreme austerity have stunted growth. The myth that public services can be bled to recovery is no more rational than the medieval practice of applying leeches to dying patients.
Difficulties
Given the social and economic difficulties that Britain faces, the question is why Miliband is not the clear favourite to win tomorrow. It is true that he might hope for outright victory but for the surge in SNP support caused, in part, by a spasm of revulsion against mainstream politics. The challenge posed by insurgents cries out for Miliband’s initial vision of social democracy reimagined for an ice age of frozen hopes and budgets. That revolution has not happened, partly because of the leader’s asymmetric attitude to risk. On small (and some bigger) issues, Miliband is a gambler whose bets, such as courting Russell Brand, pay off.
Few leaders would have been rash enough to commission the stone plinth of pledges derided as the heaviest suicide note in history. In private, Miliband defends his monolith, pointing out that his promises are now familiar to millions more voters. If Labour is condemned to political death today, the party’s tombstone blues may be caused not by Miliband’s Moses complex but by his caution. Part Prufrock and part seer, he has matched an eloquent case for change with overly meagre remedies. For example, Labour’s mansion tax is less fair (and potentially far less lucrative) than reforming council tax bands. Raising money for the NHS and social care for the elderly requires questions that no aspiring prime minister cares to ask or answer about who should pay.
Miliband, though less brutal than Cameron, has also been disingenuous about funding public services and opaque about what he would cut. Far from being profligate, he has erred on the side of parsimony.
Issues
But other issues are at stake tomorrow. Badly as Miliband has been wrong-footed by the SNP, Cameron’s decision to alienate Scotland for political gain is more dangerous to a fraying Union. Britain might well sleepwalk out of Europe, to its incalculable cost, under a Cameron and Clegg coalition. Under Miliband there would be no referendum.
On climate change and Britain’s role in the world, he has made belated efforts to fill the vacuum left by the prime minister. He may yet do better than Cameron tomorrow but, if all else fails, he has one last card to play. Should Labour fall short of a majority, Miliband will not go quietly. Instead he is determined to assert what he sees as his constitutional right and duty.
Behind the scenes, a Labour team, marshalled by the former Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer, is primed to talk to smaller parties. None of that may be enough. Labour doubters will condemn anything smacking of an affront to legitimacy, and voters will be swayed not by constitutional rulebooks but by the smell test of fairness. Some allies think that if Labour is behind the Tories by 15 seats, then it may be over for Miliband. “That’s a margin of a million votes,” says one insider. So voters should be careful what they wish for.
Miliband has made clear that he would not preside over a Bankers’ Britain that venerates and safeguards the very wealthy. Long ago, Neil Kinnock issued a warning that bears paraphrasing. If Cameron wins tomorrow, do not be poor, do not be frail, do not be young, do not grow old.
Do not be hungry or disadvantaged or disabled, or you are liable to bear the cost of balancing the nation’s books. Labour can promise no easy conduit to a society in which compassion co-exists with economic competence. Still less can it be relied upon to fix our broken electoral system, shore up the Union or reforge Britain’s niche in a fluid world. No certainties will be on offer in the ballot booths.
The result is unguessable and the outcome hazier still. But in the breaker’s yard of this election, Ed Miliband stands the greatest chance of salvaging a better future from the wreckage.
— The Telegraph Group Limited, London 2015
