A Decent Leader

Jackie Ashley writes:

British politics is, and always has been, a village of random brutality, a larger school playground in which someone is always being beaten up behind the bike sheds. The gang chooses the victim almost unconsciously before moving on to the next. Some careers end on the ground. Others survive the experience and grow stronger. Which takes us to the case of Ed Miliband.

Nick Clegg may be roughed up by the Tory press fairly regularly but, with fewer outings in the Commons, doesn't suffer the same personal attacks. Ed's performances at prime minister's questions are deemed rubbish; we're told he lacks charisma and that his party should be way ahead in the polls; and that he needs to be replaced, pronto, by Yvette Cooper, or Ed Balls, or his brother David, or… well, pick your own.

Long ago, I coined the phrase "Zen politics" to describe his eerily relaxed style, and perhaps nothing infuriates his detractors more than his calm in the face of criticism. He isn't flapping. He isn't ramping it up. He just blinks, listens, gives a long hard look, and patiently returns to what he was saying in the first place. He's aware of the sticks and stones, but chooses to ignore them.

Yet at the end of a turbulent year, it's worth looking back and trying to assess Ed Miliband's leadership so far. And it would be ludicrous to claim that everything has gone well. He hasn't caught the country's imagination. David Cameron treats him, and Labour, with casual insolence. Prime minister's questions are, from Labour's point of view, half-hour bouts of wasted opportunity, tedium and frustration. And when Peter Mandelson said on Sunday the party needed more definition and a clearer direction, he was obviously right.

Let's start with the polling. This shouldn't be a major issue. Though in the wake of the Cameron veto and the Anglo-French row, the Tories got a six-point lead in the ICM poll, while YouGov had Labour three points ahead. In the west London Feltham and Heston byelection, where real votes were being counted, Labour's Seema Malhotra won with an 8.6% swing, which seems pretty good, and would in fact deliver Labour a general election victory if replicated at the next election. When it comes to personal satisfaction ratings, according to Mori, Ed has led Dave for six months of this year and Dave has led Ed for six months – even stevens then. Ed is still doing much better than failed Tory leaders such as William Hague and Iain Duncan Smith, and he's about in the same position as David Cameron was at this stage of the last parliament.

Many say, even on the Labour side: hold on – with the economy in this dire state and Britain isolated in Europe, the opposition should be streets ahead. Isn't that true?

Up to a point. We face a very confused, dangerous and fast-changing situation. Cameron's City-defending veto triumph now looks like a meaningless political stunt, as Vince Cable and Nick Clegg have pretty much admitted. Nobody knows how new rules may eventually affect the British economy; whether the eurozone will start to come apart despite the new agreement; and whether Britain can avoid a full-blown recession. In these circumstances, the fact that so many people are folding their arms and refusing to commit to any party is hardly surprising.

I say "up to a point", though, because a clearer Labour plan for Europe and the economy would pull more people across. Ed Miliband has done more than he's credited with internally. There's an important move coming for party headquarters from Victoria Street to closer to Westminster and the shadow cabinet; party membership is up 65,000 since he took over; and he has had some palpable hits, particularly on phone hacking and politicians' over-close relationship with the Murdoch empire.

Furthermore, he's swimming against a strong anti-Labour media tide. The majority of the press is, of course, pro-Conservative but the new kids on the block, the political bloggers and digerati, are also overwhelmingly on the libertarian, anti-state right.

Just as important, Labour's defeated Blairites can't get over it, and some of the most vicious criticism of Miliband can be heard from former Blairites, including bloggers like Dan Hodges and John Rentoul, as well as other journalists on left-of-centre newspapers. Ed badly needs some supporters to join the battle of ideas being fought (and lost) online. And perhaps those who attack him might reflect on the Twitter exchanges on Sunday, where one Ed supporter, Owen Jones, pointed out that some Labour people are doing the Tories' work for them.

Yet I'm conscious that this defence of Ed Miliband could start to sound like an apologia. Neither he nor Labour is doing well enough, for all the difficulties of mid-term recessional politics. And it all comes back to that battle of ideas – the "definition" question. In short: if you have the right analysis, and convincing solutions, then questions of personality matter much less, and the argument, online or offline, will swing your way. People around Ed Miliband talk of a new phase of "primary colours" politics in the new year, meaning bolder, clearer and stronger. It's needed.

It clearly must revolve around two themes. The first is growth. The second is democracy, particularly in the European context. As I've argued before, it would be crazy for a centre-left party to be championing a Europe of bankers' rules being imposed on voters without their say-so. Labour needs to have clear ideas about what a more stripped down and democratic European structure would look like, ready for the collapse of the euro project if it happens.

The plan for growth means getting out of overseas military adventures, longer-term nuclear fantasies and a tax system which lures rich, tax-allergic exiles here for no benefit. It means more help for the industries with a future, including high-grade manufacturing and IT, and a sense of urgency about education – and yes, getting away from the exam-obsessed, league table-fixated system criticised by Mehdi Hassan here last week. It means a more defiant, angrier assertion of Labour values of solidarity and fairness against a coalition far better at stripping away jobs than finding a way of replacing them.

Get these ideas clear, and presented well, and many of Ed Miliband's current troubles will blow away pretty fast. He needs help. All leaders do. Some of the older generation, including his brother, need to rally to the flag. But this is a decent leader thinking his way through. It really is too soon to write him off.