Mandy fires another salvo against Miliband
By politics.co.uk staff
New Labour architect Peter Mandelson has fired another angry salvo at Ed Miliband for disowning the New Labour tag.
The former business secretary, who was one of the key figures in the creation of New Labour, reacted angrily to the party leader’s decision to rebrand the party following its disastrous election performance.
“I would not be saying that all those Labour party members and all those Labour voters who supported the party through three successive general elections that what they were voting for – New Labour – is nothing,” he said at the Cheltenham Literary Festival.
“It’s an insult to those people that worked for the Labour Party, who voted for the Labour Party, to say to them that they voted for something that was fraudulent, useless or didn’t deliver.
“Restyle it, remould it, let it address new challenges, let it build and take a new direction that the new generation wants.
“But you don’t have to do that by defining it against what your own party of government has done over the last 20 years.”
Lord Mandelson has lost much of his reputation in the party since he released his memoirs, in the wake of the general election campaign.
His endorsement of David Miliband – who also rejected the new Labour tag – was seen by some commentators as a victory for Ed Miliband when it was announced.
“If Labour doesn’t offer suitable, realistic and tough answers to the problems of the deficit and our national finances then the public are going to say ‘we don’t like what the Conservatives are doing but the Labour party does not have any answers either’,” Lord Mandelson continued.
“That is about being a party of power rather than a party of protest. A party of power isn’t one that cynically represents the trade unions or the shrinking working class vote, neither is it a party that says simply what people want to hear.
“The party of power, in contrast, is one that addresses tough decisions and choices right across the policy range.
“And if the Labour Party isn’t doing that then it isn’t going to receive the support that it needs to do win the next election. That’s the lesson of New Labour.”
Ed Miliband’s keynote conference speech saw him admit the Iraq war, financial sector pay packets and the decline of civil liberties was wrong.
