David Miliband officially launches campaign
By Aled Thomas
David Miliband formally launched his bid to become Labour leader in his South Shields constituency today.
Mr Miliband, who faces a challenge from his younger brother Ed, the former energy secretary, and possibly also from Ed Balls and John Cruddas, has been trying to shift perceptions of himself as a Blairite.
Speaking to constituents, party members and fellow MPs from the north east he opened with a joke, commending party members from Jarrow for coming to see him speak in South Shields.
He said: “I’m proud of the Labour party. Ten days ago we showed grit and fight, determination and resilience. The Labour party is the home of progressive politics and will remain so.
“We must reform the party and rebuild it and prepare to fight and win a general election again.”
Mr Miliband defended the last 13 years of Labour government saying people should not believe what he said would be a “great trashing attempted in the next few weeks”.
But he did admit that Labour seemed to lose connection with its core voters on issues such as immigration and housing and also because: “This was a change election and we appeared to be the old order. Future is the most important word in politics, we didn’t claim it.”
Saying that the era of New Labour and Blair-Brown splits was over, Mr Miliband, the former foreign secretary, said there were four things the party needed to do; one was to ally policies to values rather than appear as “exercises in beancounting”, the second was to renew the party’s ideology to bring it up to date.
Mr Miliband also said the party ought to renew itself, and quoted MP Phil Woolas as saying Labour stopped reforming itself the day after it won power.
And he said Labour need to be “raucous, determined, obstinate and passionate when they get it wrong”, in opposition to the new coalition, adding “it sticks in the craw to call them the government but they are in government.”
Calling himself an idealist, Mr Miliband, said he wanted to campaign as “a credit to the Labour party” and said he believed he was someone who “can win the battle of ideas.”
No date has been set for the leadership election, but it is expected to be completed by the time of the party conference in the autumn.
