Ed Miliband: 'We're brothers, not clones. I'm different from David'
The former climate change secretary explains how New Labour lost its way - and says that his deep sense of values can make him the party's new leader
- guardian.co.uk, Friday 21 May 2010 22.00 BST
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Ed Miliband says Labour can inspire a new generation of young people now that the party is no longer the establishment. He is one of six candidates so far. Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian
It wasn't the sun going to his head or the fact it was nearly the weekend that found Ed Miliband yet again dropping the word "love" into his pitch for the Labour leadership.
He mentioned it in a question and answer session last Saturday to launch his campaign at a Fabian Society event in London. And he mentioned it again on a warm Friday morning, in his first newspaper interview as contender.
"Aspiration is about prosperity and what you do for yourself and for your family," he said. "But it is also about the other things in life that are outside the market – it is about time, it is about compassion and love. Government doesn't create this but it does create the space for people to enjoy those things. I think actually there are lots of pressures on people which make it difficult to enjoy those things."
One of those pressures might be the not insignificant problem of contesting the leadership against his elder brother, David. "It's a fraternal contest," he says, before correcting himself. "It can't be a fraternal contest with Diane [Abbott] in it … A sororal contest?" He knows it's not quite as effective a phrase.
"Look, I went through the Brown-Blair deal of 1994. I think it's much better for the party that we have this contest. The one thing I am certain about is that David and I being in this contest will ensure this is a contest of comrades and not people trying to do each other in."
There is puzzlement over why he's in the race when he could be Bobby Kennedy to David's JFK, running his brother's campaign. "We're brothers, not clones. We have different backgrounds. He's made a huge contribution in terms of the empowerment agenda when he was [minister for] communities and local government. I have tried to inspire a new generation of young people around the environment.
"This is Labour's opportunity to inspire a new generation of young people. We are not the establishment any more. I want the Labour party to be the best community organising force in this country. I think the Tories talked about it and they may have had the idea, but they did not have the membership or the people to make it happen."
He wants the party to be "like London Citizens", the UK's largest community organising group, and will launch a campaign on Wednesday to get all constituency Labour parties to join its campaign for a "living wage" of £7.60 an hour, instead of the current £5.83 minimum wage. "We've got to show as a political party in parliament but also outside that we can achieve things."
He casts this campaign as being about "dignity of work", "love" and "dignity". Though he carries such a large, square briefcase that he looks like, in the words of his adviser, a BT engineer, he appears shorn of the technical language of government. There is beginning to be something unfamiliar about the formerly familiar ministers as, unencumbered by office, they start to think and act more freely. They look, and their ideas sound, like they have changed shape or been on holiday (although of course they haven't). Ed Miliband has clearly spent his time in government honing a private analysis of where the party should go next.
"New Labour fell victim to what it accused old Labour of doing, which is being stuck in its old orthodoxies. On the banks and the banking system we got stuck in our old orthodoxies. On the interaction of the labour market and immigration we got stuck in old orthodoxies. Now how do we move on from that? What I'm going to do in the next few weeks is lay out some fundamental principles that I think should guide us.
"I want to talk about the gap between rich and poor … I want to talk about a welfare state based not just on need but on contribution. I actually think one of the big projects we have to pursue is that we're fighting an election in the next few years – and essentially we're talking about the next 10 years – if we want to be in government in the second half of this decade, then we have to be thinking about how we shape the welfare state to be much more around the Beveridge principle and around contribution.
"I think what we did on, for example, pension credit and tax credit, that was right. It has made a big contribution to tackling pensioner poverty, child poverty. But I think we know that it reached certain limits and I think we now need to think about where we go next."
Miliband says he wants the party to think about "the national insurance principle" – how to give people a "sense of security" in an insecure world when government spending is tight. "We live in a world where recessions can hit and people can fall out of work, it's not just enough to have the barest protection for people. If you think about the settlement of the 1960s and 1970s – that was about a sense of security. A defined benefit pension. Secure jobs and secure wages and a small chance of unemployment. What we haven't been able to do, and what I think is the next project for Labour, is to think, 'Now what is the modern form of that settlement?'
"What we know about the welfare state is that in order to sustain public support for it, if it's only a means-tested welfare state, then you won't maintain middle-class support for it. It was [Richard] Titmuss who said services for the poor are poor services. For the middle classes the social security system doesn't do very much if you fall out of work and you're someone on a reasonable income. All you'll be offered is a means-tested 50 or 60 quid a week."
This could be quite an expensive agenda, and he acknowledges it. Elsewhere, he also hints – as Ed Balls, another contender, has been doing – that he will say no to an unfettered rise in the level of university tuition fees. These and some of his other positions are indeed more closely associated with the left of the party. As is his admission that he contemplated resignation over the government's decision to build a third runway at Heathrow and his belief that the invasion of Iraq was overly hasty.
But can he win? "I tell you why I think I can do it. I think a leader needs a deep sense of values and being motivated by values. And a recognition that the way to win is with values, not without them. I think it needs to be someone who can reach out to all parts of the population and I think I can do that. It needs to be someone who can unite the party and I think I can do that. And it needs to be someone who has ideas for the future, and that's me. I approach this contest with a sense of adventure. I think I can win."
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