I'm fine with Ed. When I voted in the Labour leadership elections, my main priority was finding someone who wouldn't tear the party apart. If David had been selected instead, the Labour party would almost certainly have descended into chaos, given how closely associated with all the key Blairite factions David Miliband was. Ed was obviously somewhat associated with Brown, but not closely enough for it be an immediate issue. Really, it's a miracle the party isn't more fractious at the moment, and I think Ed Miliband did a good job at that.
I dunno, I think that's exactly what they need, though. They need that dialectical approach to basically deciding who they are. I'm not the first person to ask what a traditionally tax-and-spend party does in an era with little money, and right now there's a sort of uneasy truce between all the groups that I don't think is good for the party in the longer term. It also means you end up with the weird situation like the 10p tax bracket where they find themselves pledging to revert their own reforms.
As for his policy positions, I think there are actually a fair old number now. Just to run through a brief list;
- Gas and electricity price freeze until 2017
- Reintroduce the 10p starting tax rate
- Expanding free child care for 3 and 4 year olds to 25 hours a week for working parents
- Build 200,000 homes a year by 2020
- A legislated version of the living wage
- The Compulsory Jobs Guarantee
- Closing loopholes relating to the zero hour contract
- Reduce the small business multiplier in business rate for 2015, and freeze it for 2016
- A mansion tax on properties valued at over £2 million
- Means-tested fuel allowance
- Investing the OBR with auditing powers
- Increased subsidies for regional banks
- A break-up of the major banks
- Force energy companies to separate generation and supply ends of the business, and use an open market to monitor pricing between the two halves
There are more, but I'm bored now. Suffice to say, it seems a bit weird to say "they have no policies" when they have quite a number of policies. They've even published two booklets full of them, and the Policy Review isn't even finished yet. I think many erstwhile Labour supporters are actually quiet because a fair few of those policies aren't really what they wanted - the Compulsory Jobs Guarantee being a big example. Miliband is more centrist than a number of people expected.
But I also think a lot of them are "have a pony" style nothing-policies. Build 200,000 houses a year? The last government had a target of 240,000 a year and they just... didn't. Clegg has said the Lib Dems want to target 300,000 and it's the official position of the Conservatives to boost house building but they don't have a specific target. "Closing loopholes", "stop abuse" (re: 0-hour) is political cover for "we don't want to tell you what we'll do" etc. Then there's a few about the minutiae of specific functioning of industries (energy) and government (OBR). Obviously he's announced more than 3 policies, but they're by no means a meaningful offer, especially for 10 months out from an election.
As leader of the opposition, it's his responsibility to offer a meaningful alternative, but I don't think he's done that. Now that he's signed up to the Tory spending plans, he needs to stop saying "that cut's wrong" and start saying "we'd cut this". He talks about the cost of living and about how Labour would "fundamentally reshape our economy" but then offers a cap on energy costs and tweaks in the business rates. I think people would love a genuine offer to reshape the economy - a minimum income system, dramatic changes to the income tax system, switching to a land-based tax system, etc. But the list you offered doesn't really seem to do that. Yesterday was the most significant foreign policy day of the parliament imo - moreso even than Syria (though even that was a bit of a balls up - more MPs voted
for a future debate than against, but Miliband's intervention effectively split the vote into two separate bills and somehow he promoted that as him holding back the baying hounds) and Miliband was in the US. Now I don't care about him trying to meet Obama - whatever, he wants to be Prime Minister and there's nothing wrong with him meeting the President of our biggest ally - but yesterday the voice of opposition (or support) on the UK's foreign policy position both regarding Gaza/Israel and Ukraine/Russia was put forward by Harman. Not even the shadow Foreign secretary, but Harman. And that's nothing against her (I've actually warmed to her in the last 4 years), but she's not the one asking to be Prime Minister. In five or two or one year, no one will remember it, but isn't that rather the point? No one will remember it, because he wasn't there. It must be hard to get behind a "leader" like that.
