Labour Party Election

On the 25th of September Ed Miliband very narrowly beat his brother, David, for the leadership of the Labor party. David had been the favorite to win and last second backing from trade unions enabled him to get the top spot. Ed has been portrayed to be more left leaning than David, who is more central and has been branded “Red Ed”. After Ed’s nervy acceptance speech and David’s brilliant valedictorian one two days later, the people present at the party conference in Manchester, even the ones who had backed Ed, were probably wondering if they had made the right choice.
David was seen as the heir to the Labor party throne, and now the MPs and activists are probably cursing the trade unions for the results. David certainly was the one who most deserved to win, having the experience as foreign secretary and being Tony Blair’s protégé. He had also been waiting for this moment for a long time, and it was his dream to become Prime Minister.
Sadly, that dream has been snatched away from him by his brother, and some see this as unfaithfulness. Now that David Miliband has announced that he is leaving frontline politics, Britain will lose an experienced and extremely able politician. It is understandable that he would not want to work under his younger brother, who has followed him everywhere, from school to the same Oxford college, into the Labor party, into Parliament and finally into the race for party leadership and there ended up being one Miliband too many.
The Tories of course, will be delighted that they get to face the younger Miliband as opposition leader, because David would have made life quite difficult for them. They will aim to exploit the Red Ed tag to the fullest, but they cannot get too complacent. In the elections, they were denied a majority because of Labor, and had to form a coalition with the Liberal Democrats.
Labor are also currently neck and neck with the conservatives in the opinion polls, and that is with Red Ed and before the budget cuts have been unveiled.
Ed’s policies will be shaped by the decisions he takes during the first few weeks of his leadership. I think that he will be more towards the left, even though this is something Labor must avoid, because when the time for general elections comes, it will make people think about whether Labor are electable or not. He will also be supporting what the trade unions say and do. He will also recommend an increase on income tax and other taxes on the upper class and make benefits easier to get. The economy will be expanded to create more jobs. He will also be advocating the plan his brother came up with, to cut the deficit by half in four years.
Let’s hope that Ed’s “new generation” actually learns from New Labor’s mistakes. If he manages to shake the Red Ed tag and centralize the party a bit, Mr. Head of Labor may just turn into Mr. Prime Minister.

Ayesha Nishtar