What Does Ed Miliband’s Victory Tell Us About Modern British Political Leadership?
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Ed Miliband’s victory as Labour leader tells us virtually nothing about the possible direction of the Labour Party, as witness the acres of disparate punditry occupying today’s press. Is he ‘Red Ed’, or is he the pragmatist leader of a new generation? Is he Iain Duncan Smith or Tony Blair made anew? Other than the fact that the unions appear to have voted for him in order to reject his more obviously Blairite brother – one in the eye for a historically failing Blair there – what, really, does Ed Miliband stand for? We don’t really know. We don’t really know because he has been in front line politics for such a short length of time, and it is this fact as much as anything else that may be the most telling aspect of Ed Miliband’s election, as the renowned political scientist Philip Cowley comments today.
In an article for Will Straw’s left leaning blog, Left Foot Forward, Cowley notes that Miliband minor, who has served just one term as an MP so far, will be facing another one-termer who was elected leader across the Despatch Box at Prime Minister’s Questions. David Cameron, elected 2001, became Tory leader 2005. Ed Miliband, elected 2005, becomes Labour leader 2010. And then there’s Nick Clegg, who became leader of the Liberal Democrats after just two years in the House of Commons. These are not long parliamentary careers. You’d have to go back to William Pitt the Younger, the beneficiary of an ancien regime of patronage and inherited seats, to find a leader who had served in the Commons for such a similarly short time as our present crop.
Cowley not only raises the issue of the relative newness of these leaders, but also notes that their career trajectory has been that of the professional politician (his blog piece, indeed, is headed “Being a career politician now seems like the only route to the top”. ) Cameron and Miliband both served as Special Advisers, Clegg went the European route, as a Commission aide and then MEP. Where there is an outside career (for Cameron and Clegg), it is limited to media work or PR.
We of course need our MPs and political leaders to be fully familiar with the process of politics. We do not necessarily want political neophytes to fumble around learning the ropes before finally being able to make an impact. But there is something just a little uncomfortable in the thought that men whose world outlook has been shaped purely by the insular world of the Westminster or Brussels political professional are now seizing the commanding heights of the British polity. For one thing, what does it say about the opportunities for leadership of those who have spent considerable careers in business, public service or other non-political jobs? If the parties are only prepared to look at the relatively new figures from their own party civil services, they are going to be very short indeed of the sort of broad-based experience that gives their electioneering, and more importantly their eventual ruling, the essential depth and maturity required for sensible decision making. The majority of global communities over the centuries have tended to expect their leading figures to be men – and latterly women – who have seen much and done much outside of a narrow political world. With age comes a diversity of experience that has often been seen as essential for wise and balanced governance. The successful brash Young Turks, like William Pitt the Younger, have been the exceptions, not the rule. Whether the British political system will benefit or suffer from this extraordinary turnaround remains to be seen. At the moment, as Cowley concludes, it looks as if political service, not world experience, is the fastest route to the top.
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