I have to say – and of course as an Ed M supporter I am clearly biased – but I think Ed has played a canny game with his recent pronouncements both that let down Lib Dems should look again at Labour, and at the same time predicting their extinction to Kilmarnock Labour Party. And while I doubt that he had anything to do with the Kennedy rumours directly, they won’t have hurt him with his chosen audience either.

Because Ed isn’t really speaking to the Lib Dems. He’s speaking to the Labour members who want to see us take the best of what the Lib Dems might have offered in a Lib Lab coalition – on civil rights for example – but also have a strong belief in the ethos and importance of the public sector and Keynesian economics.

Oh he may be appealing to Lib Dem voters who are waking up to the difference between what they thought they were voting for and what they got. Probably more to voters than to members for now, but that can and will change as the Government implement their vicious cuts.

But what he’s really doing is proving that he know how to win and fight an election. He’s looking at who his electorate are (including the 10,000 recent members previously identified as Lib Dems who will probably vote as newly active members) and what they want and he’s giving it to them in good policy based terms.

Critics say that pandering to the party won’t win the country, but I disagree. Firstly, re-energising the party will build a huge advantage that money can’t buy. It was activists who stopped the last election being the disaster it could have been despite all of Ashcroft’s millions. Keeping them energised for the fight will be essential. Secondly, there is a good electoral strategy coming out of Ed’s thoughts both on where the Labour Party should be, and also on whose votes we should be aiming to win. It’s a winning combination of strategy and good policy that could well push him over the top come September.

Tags: Charles Kennedy, Ed Miliband, Labour, Labour members, Lib Dems, winning

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 24th, 2010 at 14:35 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.