Ed Miliband: I have regrets over Labour manifesto
Ed Miliband has admitted harbouring regrets over his role writing the 2010 Labour general election manifesto.
Speaking to politics.co.uk, the shadow climate change secretary was asked why civil liberties did not play a more substantial role in the document, given the focus he has placed on the issue in his leadership campaign.
“I accept that as a criticism. And I take my responsibility for that,” he said.
“It hasn’t been a particularly strong strain in Labour and I accept my share of criticism for that. But I want to make it a much stronger strain going forward.”
Asked if he had any regrets over the manifesto, he answered: “Oh yeah, I mean, of course there are things you regret.
“I think it was a good manifesto. I don’t think we lost the election because of our manifesto, to be honest. I think we lost it for much deeper reasons.
“But I take my share of responsibility for everything that happened in the last government, including the manifesto, but again, it’s a question about the future really. Where does this party go in the future and what scale of change do we need?”
Asked if he had pushed for civil liberties to feature more prominently in the document, Mr Miliband was unwilling to go into details.
“I’m not going to go into, because I’ve made a rule of this, into political kiss and tell if you like, of who said what to who,” he said.
“I take my responsibility.”
Asked about his parliamentary record, which includes votes for ID cards, he replied: “I was part of the government and I take collective responsibility for that. And I say in this campaign, I take responsibility for what went right and what went wrong. But that’s what you do. You have a choice in government – you can either take collective responsibility and stay in government or you can resign.”
The new Labour leader will be unveiled just before the party’s autumn conference, on September 25th. Ed Miliband is the frontrunner, along with his elder brother, David.
