Miliband prepares to admit Labour mistakes
By Ian Dunt
Labour will admit that it was too slow to use the language of cuts, in a bid to convince voters of its economic credential.
In a controversial strategy meeting decided on at a meeting of the shadow Cabinet on Tuesday, Ed Miliband insisted that the party needed to accept criticism of its economic track record if it was to challenge government attempts to blame Labour for the economic crisis.
The Labour leader will admit that Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were both wrong to allow ‘light-touch’ regulation of the City during their time in power.
The strategy is a jarring one for Mr Miliband, who was regarded as one of Mr Brown’s allies, because it will see him openly distancing himself from the former prime minister.
Mr Brown was engaged in a prolonged debate with his chancellor, Alistair Darling, and his business secretary, Peter Mandelson, in which he resisted arguments to use the word ‘cuts’.
The prime minster feared that Labour could not win an election fighting for ‘Labour cuts’ against ‘Tory cuts’. Even when he did finally use the term, during a trade union conference, he rarely did so again.
Labour officials worry that the four-month party leadership race which took place after the election gave the coalition time to cement the impression that Labour was responsible for the state of the public finances without the party being able to effectively launch a counter-attack.
But strategists worry about how to face up to past errors, and gain renewed economic credibility, without playing into the government’s argument and conceding that they were responsible for the deficit.
