The Labour Party has draughted in an Insider's Insider to Walthamstow to try and bolster its chances for the election next year and no doubt obtain a few photos of members of the out of touch elite rubbing shoulders with a carefully choreographed bunch of the common folk. As with Nick Clegg's visit on behalf of the LibDems a few months back, I look forward to open invitations and/or the news that this is a genuinely public event and not just an exercise in astroturfing.
Thus it is that we are told that Ed Miliband is to attend a "community meeting" in Walthamstow at Willowfield School in Clifton Avenue on Thursday, November 26. This is for a discussion about "the environment" between 6.30pm and 8.30pm.
I presume this is part of the local party's attempt to counter activists' perceptions that the LibDems may be out-performing them locally. Ed Miliband is an interesting choice. He is said to be quite well liked in higher political circles (unlike his stuck-up brother the foreign secretary). Nevertheless, despite also being reasonably clean on expenses, his background as an elitist does not automatically mean he will stem the rot. Ralph Baldwin in Labourlist sums up the issue thus:
"Political assistents, think tank researchers, sycophantic suck-ups of the PM and pals with a guaranteed trip to Parliament are reminiscent of the final days of Tory rule back in 1996 when Tory candidates secured their seats by heavy donations and similar arrangements. There is consequently too little practical experience entering Parliament; the majority sweeping in from the educational establishments into the Parliamentary establishments and relying on think-tanks and PR, without the first clue of how to relate to those who they will fail to properly represent. To these institutionalised elites, the electorate have become a nuisance; they cannot afford to speak and debate with the local people for fear of being exposed."
Like Ms Creasy, Ed Miliband sadly seems to fit the bill for this critique. He seems to be the type of out-of-touch and gilded carpet bagger who has wrecked New Labour: After graduating from university, Miliband had a very brief and unsuccessful career in the media, basically going straight into a job in politics as a Labour Party researcher. No doubt his father Ralph's reputation as an influential Marxist helped him secure a role as a speechwriter and researcher for Harriet Harman. That was in 1993. In 1994 he switched his personal allegiance to Gordon Brown. By 1997, following Labour's landslide election victory, Miliband was appointed as one of Gordon Brown's special advisers with specific responsibility as a speechwriter. Guess who paid his salary. You did.
He rose to become one of then-Chancellor Gordon Brown's confidantes, being appointed Chairman of HM Treasury's Council of Economic Advisers.
In late March 2005, just weeks before the General Election, Ed Miliband elbowed aside Michael Dugher, a local candidate (though also a "special adviser" to Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon) to be the Labour candidate in the safe Labour seat of Doncaster North. The shortlist for the seat was drawn up without consultation with the local party. Miliband 'shrugged off concerns of some local party members that he had no previous ties to the area', just as we are told Ms Creasy has shrugged aside the still rumbling concerns that she was also "imposed" through an exercise using a restricted shortlist in Walthamstow.
Miliband has only 4 years experience as an MP. He was elected Labour Member of Parliament for the South Yorkshire constituency of Doncaster North in the 2005 general election. After only two years as an elected MP, Brown appointed him Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office. On 3 October 2008, Miliband was promoted to Secretary of State at the newly created Department of Energy and Climate Change in a reshuffle. He is also a Privy Councillor.
It is presumably in his capacity as minister in charge of the Department of Energy and Climate Change that he today announced his support for nuclear power. On 16 October he'd announced that the British government would legislate to oblige itself to cut greenhouse emissions by 80% by 2050, rather than the 60% cut in carbon dioxide emissions previously announced.
It is no doubt a pure co-incidence that his partner is a lawyer who specialises in environmental, planning and international law.