Just To Show They're Still Sincere. They Sing The Red Flag Once A Year

All eyes will be on Ed Miliband today during the Labour conference singing of the Red Flag.  Tony Blair always looked uncomfortable during this bit (at times doing a passable impression of John Redwood singing the Welsh national anthem).  



The right wing tabloids will be seeing the fervour with which the ridiculously named 'Red Ed' sings the old Socialist anthem.


It all reminded me of the old song, 'The People's Flag Is Palest Pink, part of the genius of Leon Rosselson, amongst others.  The first line of that song goes:


The people's flag is palest pink
It's not as red as you might think


Probably an interesting analysis of those who think that opportunist Ed is really a reincarnation of Nye Bevan.


The most apt verse for the present state of the Labour Party is the second one though.  Union barons (note not Labour Party members or MPs) have decided that the working class are best represented by a privileged, middle class, liberal intellectual from North London.  Ed Miliband probably represents one of those middle class intellectuals derided by Tony Blair in his autobiography as not understanding ordinary working class people or working class aspiration.  He is one of those Hampstead liberals who has an idealised version of ordinary working class people, while being happy to constrain their ambition or aspiration.


As Matthew Parris says in The Times today:


"He is one of those North London Labour intellectuals who find it genuinely difficult to believe that there could exist people of sound mind and humane instincts outside the circle of light in which the intelligent Centre Left feel they are bathed."


Of course, the Labour establishment and the trade unions rejected Andy Burnham, the one candidate who does genuinely understand working class aspiration and the one candidate who could genuinely have connected and empathised with aspirant voters.





Still, as the second verse of that old song said, the liberal middle classes always think they know what is best for ordinary working class people anyhow:

The cloth cap and the woollen scarf

Are images outdated

For we're the party's avant garde

And we are educated

So raise the rolled umbrella high

The college scarf, the old school tie

And just to show that we're sincere

We'll sing The Red Flag once a year

There Is Only One Thing That Is Bennite About Ed Miliband

The right wing popular press have already christened Ed Miliband as 'Red Ed'.

Bagehot takes up the point here:

According to the newspaper narrative, Ed Miliband, the younger brother and former cabinet minister in charge of climate change, is significantly to the left of David Miliband, the elder brother and former foreign secretary. I have seen the word Bennite bandied around, in homage to Tony Benn, the former Labour cabinet minister who really was a proper lefty in his day, advocating capital controls and the wholesale nationalisation of British industry. It is true that the pair have been sending little hints and signals since the contest became a two horse race, indicating that MiliE is to the left of MiliD (as some call them) and is more tempted than MiliD by some form of core vote strategy to woo back disaffected Labour voters and former Liberal Democrat voters who are disgruntled by the Con-Lib coalition. But Bennite? Come off it.

There isn't much Bennite about Ed Miliband.  He is still, seemingly attached to the idea of unelected European Commissioners having more power than elected politicians.  As far as I'm aware, he isn't advocating unilateral disarmament, or capital controls, or industrial democracy, or withdrawal from the EU.

There is however one thing that links Ed Miliband and Benn together.  That is the sudden transformation of their worldviews after an election defeat.  Michael Foot told the story of the Benn transformation brilliantly in his 'Loyalists and Loners':

"Tony Benn was once an up and coming, middle of the road Labour MP with an excellent chance of becoming Prime Minister... in the attitudes he adopted on questions of policy, there were not so much as a list towards left-wing demagogy.  He gave every impression of being a good administrator and was always a good defender of his Department in the House of Commons.  He was a strong supporter of Britain's entry into the Common Market.  He backed... In Place Of Strife.  He was not notable for protesting against the Wilson Government's support for the American war in Vietnam... He had never been a member of the Tribune group or the Keep Left group or the Victory for Socialism Group... he did vote for Gaitskell in the 1955 leadership election... However, during the decade of the 1970s he was transformed - the word is too weak; reincarnated might be better - into a different political animal altogether."

Such a transformation seems to have occurred to Ed Miliband over the past few months.  From Brownite minister, he has transformed himself into some kind of keeper of the Bevanite flame.  The man criticising the New Labour establishment was, after all, the man who depended on that establishment for his advance.  He did serve, without showing any open signs of disloyalty or hostility, under both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.  He did serve as an adviser to New Labour for many years before that.  He did, after all, write the election manifesto in 2010.

I'm not of course suggesting that the younger brother's sudden volte face on a number of issues is an opportunist one.  It has, though, been almost as sudden as the Benn conversion of the 1970s.  Benn suggested that it was "his experience as a Labour Minister" that brought about his transformation.  Similarly, Miliband claimed [in today's Guardian] that he had been "liberated to say what he finally believed."

Dennis Skinner and David Miliband. The 'Laughing Halibut Pact'?

There were gasps of surprise and astonishment when it emerged earlier on today that the bastion of the 'hard left', Dennis Skinner had backed David Milband for the Labour leadership.


It probably shouldn't have come as too much of a surprise.


Although probably opposed to Miliband on every policy issue, from the EU to Trident, Skinner is keenly aware of what it takes to do well in the House of Commons and has opted for the man he thinks is most likely to trouble the coalition.


Anybody who has read Tony Blair's memoirs shouldn't be so surprised.  This is what Blair said about 'the Beast of Bolsover':

"In later years, Dennis was one of my best (if somewhat closet) supporters.  He didn't agree with any of my policies, but he liked someone who whacked the Tories... In particular, he used to give me brilliant PMQs advice... feeding me one-liners and explaining what would rouse the troops behind me."

So, where was the unlikely Miliband-Skinner axis formed?  





Pure, tongue in cheek speculation, but Mr Skinner is a bit of a regular at 'The Laughing Halibut' in Strutton Ground.  And, last week, when asked what his favourite London discovery was by the Evening Standard, David Miliband replied, "the Laughing Halibut on Strutton Ground."


Maybe the Granita accord has now been replaced by the Laughing Halibut agreement!