Labour conference 2011: live coverage
Rolling coverage of all the day's developments in Liverpool as they happen
8.42am: Digby Jones (Lord Jones), the former CBI director general and a trade minister under Gordon Brown (but never a member of the Labour party) has described Ed Miliband's speech yesterday as "divisive and a kick in the teeth" for business. That may explain why Miliband was so keen this morning insist that he was not anti business. He has given four interviews since dawn. Here are the main points. I've taken some of the quotes from the Press Association and PoliticsHome.
Miliband insisted that he was not anti business. Speaking about the message he gave in his speech yesterday, he said:
This is not an anti business message. This is an anti business as usual message. That is the most important thing about my speech yesterday.
He denied taking Labour away from the centre. This is what he said when asked if he was taking the party away from the middle ground.
Absolutely not. We are going to be firmly in the middle ground of politics, but the middle ground is changing. The idea that you shouldn't have responsibility at the top of society - it is not a left wing thing to say that there should be responsibility. It is absolutely in the middle ground.
He has said that a Labour government would not be able to achieve social justice through spending. This is an important argument that did not strongly feature in the speech yesterday. Although all senior Labour figures speaking this week have accepted the need to tackle the deficit, the suspicion remains that at heart Labour remains a party of public spending. Miliband said his party had to accepted that the situation had changed.
It's not just a new era in the obvious sense that I've been talking about in my speech. For the L! abour pa rty, it's a really important point this. Spending is not going to be the way we achieve social justice in the next decade.
He dismissed reports that voters tell focus groups that they think he is "weird". When Jim Naughtie raised this on the Today programme, he said:
Other people make their own judgments. I think I'm a pretty normal guy ... Look, I don't give a damn about that ... By the way, I've got an old-fashioned view, Jim. Substance wins out.
He said that the speech represented his deeply-held views. He took a risk standing for the Labour leadership, he said, because it damaged his relationship with his brother. But he did so because he knew Britain needed "fundamental change", he said. "I felt this was a speech that I wanted to deliver. It was a speech that I have written and crafted myself," he said.
He disassociated himself from the jeering at Tony Blair that occured during his speech. "It's not a jeer I share," he said.
He renewed his call for a negotiated settlement in the dispute over public sector pensions. "There is two months until that strike happens," he said. "I'm not going to get into hypotheticals on whether there is a strike or not. What I'm saying is, let's avoid the strike from happening."
8.32am: That was interesting. Miliband seems to have polished his soundbites overnight. The line about his message being an "anti business as usual" (see 8.10am) was good, and I see that in other interviews he has been talking about "a new reckoning for a new era", which is also more memorable than "new bargain" stuff in the speech yesterday. He robustly dismissed the suggestion that focus groups find him "weird" and he passionately insisted that the speech represented what he really thinks. But I was most intrigued by hi! s insist ence that Labour cannot expect to achieve social justice through spending. I'll post a summary, with the key quotes and the highlights from Miliband's other interviews, in a moment.
8.25am: Naughtie asks about polling.
Q: The focus groups say you are "weird". (He's referring to the latest Ashcroft polling. Jonathan Freedlan has written about it in his Guardian column today.)
Miliband says he does not give a damn about that. "Substance will win out."
Q: But Danny Finkelstein in the Times today (paywall) says William Hague had the same problem?
Miliband says he does not agree. Labour has invited 2,000 members of the public to come to the conference today. They can ask him any question they want.
Miliband says he set out a serious argument yesterday. He took a big risk standing for the leadership. It was a personal risk, in relation to his family. He did that because he had something to say. The speech he gave yesterday represented what he wanted to say.
8.18am: The interview is still going on.
Q: You are saying there's a moral role for the state. And you talked about a moral element in housing policy. If you have a family with three children who are "good" and a family with three children who are "bad", why should the children in the "bad" family lose out?
Miliband says he thinks responsibility should be rewarded in society. Government sets rules. In the 1980s Thatcher changed things by changing the rules. The important thing is to get the rules right.
Q: You are arguing for the right of the state to make a moral judgment.
Miliband says this is about rewarding people who contribute. Manchester council is already doing this. This is about the moral majority. The Beveridge report talked about rewa! rding pe ople who put something in.
Q: So the state should not continue to surrender moral authority? Do you want a re-assertion of the moral authority of the state?
Miliband says he will put it in his own way. The state sets rules, he says. Are they rules based on a set of values? Thatcher was about wealth creation. Some of that was right. But it led to a culture, an ethic, that if people maximised their short-term interest, everything would be okay. That was wrong.
Q: Are you trying to bring in a post-Blair era?
Yes, says Miliband. It's a new era. David Cameron is the last gasp of the old era.
For Labour, spending will not be the way we introduce social justice in the next decade.
Unless we reform our economy, we are not going to get to the change we want to see.
8.15am: Naughtie asks about RBS pay.
Q: Stephen Hester, the RBS boss, said even his mother thought he was being paid too much.
Miliband says he thought Hester's pay was wrong.
Q: Did you object to it when you were in government?
Miliband says he was running the energy department.
The bonus culture in the City needs to change.
There should be a worker on the remuneration committees, he says.
Q: What kind of rules would you set?
Miliband says he agrees with some of what Vince Cable has said on this. There should be more transparency.
It's a pro-business message that speaks to people up and down the country, he says.
Richard Lambert, the former CBI director general, has said there is a problem with short-termism.
Miliband says the relationship between finance and industry has been a longstanding problem in British capitalism. Do we leave it or tackle it. Miliband says we should tackle it.
8.10am: The Ed Miliband interview is starting. Jim Naughtie is asking the questions.
Q: You said you would distinguish between predators and producers. Where do ! you draw the line?
Miliband says he is talking about business practices. Predatory behaviour is behaviour in a business's short term interests that does damage to the economy.
Governments can set the "rules of the game" that encourage good practices. For example, look at what he said about the energy market.
This is not an anti business message. This is an anti business as usual message.
Q: You mentioned Southern Cross. Would you say no company like Southern Cross should sell homes? They sold property to fund their growth plan.
No, says Miliband. He is saying there has to be proper regulation. There should be a sustainable business model in this sector. This is not about "heavy-handed government".
Q: But what Southern Cross did looked reasonable at the time. The problem came when there was a squeeze on revenue because occupancy rates fell. How would you know what it was doing was wrong?
Miliband says lots of people have said that the Southern Cross business model was "quite a dangerous business model".
8.01am: Ed Miliband is doing a round of interviews this morning. He will be on the Today programme (where Jim Naughtie mistakenly referred to him as "David" in the pre-7am graveyard slot) at 8.10am and I'll be covering that live. Later I'll take a look at the other interviews. Paul Waugh, who starts even earlier than I do, has been telling Twitter that Miliband's soundbites are better than they were in his speech yesterday (although, admittedly, that's not difficult.)
EdM delivering better lines this am than in his speech:"This is not anti-business, it's anti-business as usual"
The speech seems to be getting mixed reviews. This morning I'll take a good look at the papers, giving you a full summary of the reaction.
It's the last full day of the conference, and the main themes are home affair! s, healt h and education. At the end of the day we've got a Q&A with Miliband. Here's the full agenda.
9.30am: Michael Leahy, president of the TUC, delivers a speech.
Diana Holland, Labour treasurer, delivers a speech.
Auditors' report, with Leahy and Chris Kitchen, a party auditor.
Debate on crime, justice, citizenship and equalities with speeches from Sadiq Khan, the shadow justice secretary, Tessa Jowell, the shadow Cabinet Office minister and possibly Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary. (There is some doubt about Cooper because she has been visiting those affected by the mining accident at Kellingley colliery.) As Alan Travis and Sandra Laville report, Cooper is going to announce that Lord Stevens, the former Metropolitan police commissioner, will chair an "independent review" for Labour into the future of policing.
12.45pm: Break for lunch.
2.15pm: Debate on health, with a speech from John Healey, the shadow health secretary.
Debate on education, with a speech from Andy Burnham, the shadow education secretary. As Jeevan Vasagar reports, he is going to propose the establishment of a "modern baccalaureate", with a focus on preparing children for leadership and flexible working lives.
5.30pm: Ed Miliband takes part in a Q&A session with delegates.
As usual, I'll also be bringing you all the conference news, as well as the best comment from the web. I'll post a lunchtime summary at around 1pm, an afternoon one at about 5pm, and a quick one after Miliband has finished.
Comments