Miliband v Milband is just a yawn

I'm watching Ed Miliband launch his Labour leadership campaign, and frankly: its a yawn!

Its not because I think Ed Miliband is a yawn or a bad politician, its because he's trying to answer the question: what did Labour do wrong to lose the election?

I think they lost it for three reasons: lack of delivery on promises, expenses, but mostly 13 years in power.

Now I named this blog The Duck House Legacy because for me that is the tipping point when we voters went "what are you lot up to, you are not representing us, you are just filling your boots!" Amusingly, if you think about it, the worst and those chosen as headline expense claims were undertaken by Tories: the Duck House, moat cleaning and employing family. The Labour claims were just excess, and although technically within the rules, morally outside them.

So, why did the Conservatives "win," or at least get the most votes? I think simply its because we the voters wanted a change.

So in addressing the problems that the Labour party need to address to win the next election on May 7th, 2015 - in theory - what do they need to do? I think they fought a poor and highly negative campaign. There were lots of media messages about how Labour had transformed things (yes, they had and needed to. But they got poor value, which is why our national debt is racking up at £500M per day); and how we would/should be scared of a Conservative government. Actually, so far I quite like the Conservative government, although I don't think that right wingers will be at all happy at present.

But there's another problem in defining what Labour needs to transform itself to to win power again, and its the Duck House Legacy. By 2015, we will have some form of PR in government, and that means the agenda and leader needs to be about a "core" position and proposition. PR will result in a more representative government, but also a more consistent centralist government in result: gone are the days of left or right, the Duck House Legacy is that its left and right in coalition.

Labour need a wider debate on who leads them. They need more contestants. But any of the possible candidates face the same problem: how do we get to the point where we represent the new riving centre (left) force?

Duckhouse Legacy

Welcome to The Duck House Legacy - a political blog by a UK voter