Skipper

Labour face a huge mountain to climb back into power especially now that Cameron has seized the centre ground. It is astonishing that he could address his own party conference by describing the coalition as:
“An attempt to create a country based not on Labour’s selfish individualism but one based on mutual responsibility”.

Effectively Cameron is seeking to steal Labour’s most valuable clothes. To resist the government effectively, Ed Miliband must seek to achieve the following:

1. Formulate a credible position on the deficit: it has to be recognized and dealt with. There are huge gains to be made if the Conservative/Lib Dem approach goes pear shaped but Labour has to be responsible and offer a realistic policy of debt reduction.

2. At the same time Ed has to exploit popular discontent with the cuts and claim his own approach would have avoided the infliction of such pain.

3. This will be especially so if the economy enters a ‘double-dip recession, zn eventuality he must be sure to pin on the coalition.

4. Labour has to try to attract back Labour voters who defected to Lib Dems and some of their core voters too. He must try at all costs to neutralise the junior coalition partner but also to keep some lines open in case the government collapses and a new alliance has to be forged.

5. Labour has to create policies as and antidote to the view it is: a party for immigrants and benefit drawers; penalizes those who work hard for their families; and is less than competent in government.

6. The party has to recapture its natural constituency among the C1, C2, DE groups as well as continue to court middle class votes as there are not enough working class votes, realistically to put them in power.

7. The party must focus once again on the inequality in society, that the ‘super’ rich are easily as non productive as welfare scroungers and as productive of social dysfunction.

8. Ed has to dispel the idea he is too far to the left and in the pocket of the unions, especially when the rightwing press will do its best to foster such an impression. His position on this will be greatly bolstered once David returns to the Shadow Cabinet (as I am confident he will).

9. Ed has to choose a team which retains some of the older Blairites to help unify the splits in the party; he must also appoint new talented younger MPs to positions of responsibility. His first Shadow Cabinet chosen today achieves this to a fair degree, though I just wonder if Alan Johnson will be quite up to the the task facing Osborne.

10. He must beware of threats to his position from his rivals, principally Ed Balls, and, conceivably his own brother again if he falters in his task.
Finally, Ed must match and if possible eclipse Cameron in debate and at