New Labour grandees warn Miliband

John Reid said the Labour Party has to go beyond criticising the coalition
14 April 2013

Ed Miliband has been warned by two more New Labour grandees that his party must be more than just a "voice of protest" if he wants to lead it back to government.

Former home secretary John Reid said the party had to go beyond criticising the coalition and start producing policy solutions to the problems the country is facing.

Another ex-home secretary, David Blunkett, said Labour had to stand for more than the "unhappiness of a resentful and selfish public sphere".

Their comments echoed Tony Blair who, in his most significant foray into domestic politics since leaving Downing Street six years ago, said Labour could not afford to fall back into its "comfort zone".

Lord Reid said that while Mr Miliband had succeeded in avoiding party splits, he still had a lot more to do.

"You have to move from being a voice of protest to offering solutions as you move from being an effective opposition to a potential government," he told the BBC1 Sunday Politics programme. "What he now has to do is to set out the direction of a future Labour government on questions like welfare, on the economy on housing and so on. There are some signs that that is beginning to happen.

"The first task has been accomplished. Labour under his leadership has avoided fratricide and is an effective opposition. The next two years will tell whether the second important stage has been fulfilled and that is becoming a potential government with answers and solutions, not just a critique of the status quo and the present Government."

Lord Reid questioned Mr Miliband's assertion that the political centre ground was moving left, saying he did not know what the evidence was. He said: "You'll have to ask Ed Miliband that. I don't think that the centre ground is necessarily moving left."

Writing on the The Observer website, Mr Blunkett said that Mr Miliband's vision of a "One Nation" Labour Party had to be built on more than addressing obvious injustices.

"It has to be about a great deal more than politics built on grievance and the unhappiness of a resentful and selfish public sphere," he said. "More than putting right the playing-off of public sector workers against those in private enterprise. The retired versus the young, the migrant versus the resentful and excluded. Or, the badly housed versus the homeless."

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