DM4LO: The campaign kicks off

These days the Guardian dips feeds the comment pieces onto its website.  Maybe they think we can’t take all of the conflicting arguments in during one sitting.

Anyway, Polly Toynbee’s Saturday column appears at 08.00 this morning.  It wasn't worth the wait.  She produces a rambling piece suggesting that it’s inevitable Cameron will become Prime Minister and concludes:

A Cameron government voted in without enthusiasm will lack necessary public support for an era of deep and painful cuts: instant unpopularity beckons. Will Labour find the verve and imagination to reinvent itself in an opposition time that could be short?

This leads us neatly on to a speech that David Miliband gave to a private fundraising dinner for Labour candidates:

We are able to say New Labour was right about the importance of wealth creation as well as wealth distribution. New Labour was wrong to fear that action by government would always mean picking winners and ending up with British Leyland [the car company bailed out by the Government in the 1970s]. We are now proud to say that we are the party of active industrial policy that will support growth, bring jobs and green industries and new industries of the future.

New Labour was right to say that rights and responsibilities are at the heart of a modern welfare state. But New Labour was too timid when it came to talking about responsibilities at the top of society as well as at the bottom of society. So today we are able to say that responsibility needs to apply in the City as much as it does in the welfare state.

Of course, it was all dressed up as a ‘Labour can win speech’ but Our Man is on manoeuvres:

One senior Labour figure who attended the event described it as the best speech he had ever heard Mr Miliband make. Friends say he would definitely be a candidate if a vacancy arises this year.

Miliband knows he must set out his stall now because of the threat posed by Ed Balls:

Mr Balls, who would be Mr Brown’s favoured successor in a future Labour leadership election, is said to be winning strong support among the unions who, along with MPs and party members, each have one-third of the votes in the electoral college that chooses a Labour leader.

A Miliband succession can’t come soon enough, especially if Cameron wins by a narrow majority and makes a mess of it.  The pre-election campaign proves there is a high likelihood of that happening.  Having Ed Balls would result in a Brown-look-a-like.

The Labour party doesn't have a credible alternative to Miliband.

We should call today the start of the DM4LO campaign.