Bill Freezing Red Ed

[cronus]

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... ton-speech

Behold, Ed Miliband's new populism of the left

s Red Ed back? The delight that greeted Ed Miliband's address to the Labour party conference inside the hall in Brighton, coupled with dark mutterings about "statist socialism" from the conservative commentariat outside it, suggested he might be. Advisers close to Miliband were prepared for such a response, knowing as they worked on the leader's speech it would prompt the question: "Is Ed Miliband too leftwing for Britain?" They are gambling that that question just got a whole lot more complicated.

That he staked out a series of positions avowedly to the left is hard to deny. Back in the 1970s, his headline-grabbing call for a freeze on energy bills would have been bracketed under "price controls". His use-it-or-lose-it ultimatum to developers sitting on valuable real estate could easily be recast by its opponents as Bolshevik-style land confiscation.

No less revealing was what was missing from the speech. New Labour-style triangulation is over: Miliband did not feel obliged to include the once-mandatory promise of tough-as-nails welfare reform or anything more than a fleeting demand for responsibility from those on benefits. On the contrary, he suggested his defence of one now-totemic benefit expressed the essential difference between himself and David Cameron: while the latter "was the prime minister who introduced the bedroom tax, I'll be the prime minister who repeals the bedroom tax".

All of which will be seized on by the Tories and their allies to paint Ed red. But here's why it might not work. Miliband has picked his battles very deliberately, adopting positions that might be left but are also both populist and popular. Labour tested the energy freeze on focus groups and saw approval go "off the charts", according to one senior figure. The party is quite happy for the Tories to denounce market meddling, reckoning that on fuel costs voters are crying out for government intervention. And if the big six energy companies object that they can't afford to cover their costs, especially if global prices rise, Labour is poised to brand them fatcats who ought to dip into the mega-billion profits they've amassed over the years.

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Amazing to see the press reaction to this but will the lights go out with a freeze?

[Pappa]

It does seem like a very short sighted policy, but one that will appeal to voters.

[cronus]

It does seem like a very short sighted policy, but one that will appeal to voters.

The plot could be to throw off the recovery by getting energy companies to up up prices before the election and then utilise the subsequent discontent to win a majority landslide. The next few months and my electricity bill should tell whether his cunning ploy will work?