Ed M Team lead Obama-style cheers for their man, the old-school choice
Leadership contender admits New Labour mishandled council housing investment saga
Published: 09 September, 2010
by TOM FOOT
SCENES of wild euphoria greeted Ed Miliband at Haverstock School on Sunday as he cemented his popularity with a large share of Labour Party members in Camden who hailed him as their preferred choice for leader.
A question-and-answer session resembled a rally as an adoring audience of more than 300, many wearing red “Ed M Team” colours, gave him prolonged applause.
Mr Miliband avoided the pitfall suffered by his brother David recently by tackling head on the deep-rooted resentment over Camden’s council housing investment saga.
While David told a meeting in Gospel Oak recently that he was unaware of the reason why the New Labour government had not funded repairs to estates, his brother said on Sunday: “Camden and housing has hardly been a great success story of central government. We had a tin ear and we held a prejudice against council housing. We were wrong. It’s quite simple.”
He was referring to the freezing of investment because council tenants refused to allow the management of their homes to be privatised.
Mr Miliband, returning to his former school in Chalk Farm, sat alongside Holborn and St Pancras Labour MP Frank Dobson, a supporter of his bid to become party leader.
The meeting heard the confessions of returning party members, who described how they were back in love with Labour again after a brief flirtation with the Liberal Democrats.
They were welcomed back at a meeting that some likened more to a Barack Obama campaign rally than a British election hustings.
“We have got to make this a change election,” said Mr Miliband. “I’m in favour of party conference being about standing ovations and balloons, but it can’t only be about standing ovations and balloons.”
In an 80-minute session, chaired by Mr Dobson, he fielded about 40 questions, repeatedly distancing himself from the “New Labour establishment”.
He said it was important to win back the support of trade unions, recalling a meeting with dinner ladies working for the company Sodexo in Devon.
“They told me they had not been getting sick pay, they had to buy their own uniforms, there had been changes to their shift patterns,” he said.
“Unison has come in and started to organise them and made a difference to their lives.
“But frankly, the Sodexo workers didn’t think we [Labour] were very relevant to their lives. We have got to stop treating the trade unions like embarrassing relatives that need to be locked in the attic.”
Mr Miliband said his quest for “a fairer and more equal and just society” began while a pupil at Haverstock School in the mid-1980s, adding: “It made me streetwise – it taught me how to avoid getting beaten up. I met people from different backgrounds. I saw kids that had talent and intelligence but with life chances that were much less than mine.”
Dame Jane Roberts, former Labour leader of Camden Council, asked Mr Miliband how he would counter Conservative arguments that a Labour government always leaves the country in an economic mess.
He said: “We’ve got to establish the argument about the origins and cause of deficit. The same thing happened in America and in many other countries. We should also be talking more about the banks because frankly they caused the crisis.”
He told former Downing Street aide Fiona Millar that Labour “mustn’t romanticise” the old system of policy-making at conference.
Mr Dobson rounded off the meeting with a speech about the “thieving bastards” of the City, recalling how market speculators raised the price of rice in China.
He said: “The price of rice shot up from about $280 a tonne to $1,015 a tonne in April 2008. Apologists for the market said it was because the Chinese were eating more rice. If so, the Chinese must have started eating something else since then, because the price of rice has halved today.”
He warned that the same speculators were the “paymasters” of the Conservative Party before ending with warm words in support of Mr Miliband.
“We have made huge achievements but we must remember we also lost four million votes during the height of New Labour,” he said.
“What we’ve got to do is have a party led by someone who recognises we have got to not continue defending the indefensible. We will most likely be successful with this great man.”
After the meeting, Mr Dobson said: “We’re approaching 1,300 members in Holborn and St Pancras, the biggest expansion in years."