Ed Miliband: Rock Star

There’s no way Ed Miliband can win a general election cos he just looks, well, he’s got that face and, he’s just…no.

Because everybody knows that if you look a bit weird, you can never win a general election. Like that odd woman who challenged likeable avuncular Jim Callaghan in 1979 and was never heard of again.

In fact, there are plenty of examples of unpromising performers winning elections. Ted Heath was prickly and awkward, but somehow beat the polished and assured Harold Wilson in 1970. John Major was universally agreed to be boring and uninspiring before becoming, in 1992, the only party leader ever to attract 14 million UK voters.

And Clement Attlee’s government would top many people’s lists of the best ever, but his lack of charisma is an accepted historical fact, taught in history lessons somewhere between the Munich Putsch and the miniskirt.

Now, of course, these examples are from the past - as quite a lot of history is. The modern logic is that politicians have to be multi-media perform-atons, forever glossy and flawless. Elections, we are told, are entirely media events, and whoever does the media best wins. Maybe in the distant past you could win an election without winning the media, but not any more. The modern world is different. You’ve probably been told that the media will be the decisive factor in this coming election. It was probably the media that told you this.

The thing about being ‘modern’ is that you always think you are. No election coverage ever started with a Dimbleby saying, “Hello and welcome to the last election of the olden era.”

Every single general election is the most modern one yet. In every election, the media is bigger, more influential, and more demanding than they were at the last one. The media existed when Heath beat Wilson, Thatcher beat Callaghan, and Major beat anyone. By the media standards at the time, they were the less attractive candidate. So how come they still won?

There is an element of the beauty contest about an election, but it is not the whole story. If it was, then fresh gleaming David Cameron would have won a handsome majority over grumpy dirty Gordon Brown in 2010. And, of course, he didn’t win a majority at all (which is why he has governed ever since with such an air of consensus and humility).

Some politicians’ media performances are so good, they are electorally invincible. Tony Blair couldn’t have lost a general election if he wanted to. But Labour aren’t facing anyone with that kind of telegenic magnetism. Cameron’s lead over Miliband in the charisma stakes is not nearly wide enough to win the election purely on that measure. Miliband can’t win the charisma round - he just has to lose it narrowly enough that he’s still in the race. Like in Krypton Factor - you might be terrible at the assault course, but you have to make sure you at least finish it to be in with a chance of forging ahead during quick-fire general knowledge.

If Miliband confines the debate to this government’s record and both parties’ policies, then the election is there to be won. Why is an election campaign ever about anything else? Ed Miliband needs to avoid photo opportunities, even if they don’t feature a hot sandwich or tabloid newspaper. He needs to avoid narratives, message platforms, and branding. This election needs to be about explaining how his ideas are better than the other lot’s - everything else is wasted effort.

Who should be Ed Miliband’s model for an election campaign? Not Blair, obviously. His brother could have been a neo-Blair, and might even have done it well. But Ed needs to look elsewhere for inspiration. He needs to find someone who did not have matinee idol looks, someone who came across as a bit weird. Someone who was a forensic master of policy detail, who won arguments by the strength of his case. And someone whose principles sometimes led him to shelve his personal ambitions. Surely no such example exists in recent political memory?

What about Robin Cook? Mostly remembered now as the man who ran off with his secretary in protest at the Iraq war, Cook had qualities Miliband could learn from. We will never know if Cook would have been an electoral asset as a party leader. Cook’s death was the largest factor in Labour having no credible alternative to Gordon Brown when Blair resigned two years later. Cook’s public persona was very clearly exactly who he was - spiky, unashamedly bright, and with a steely determination to abide by his principles. He didn’t turn himself into something the electors would go for. He was entirely himself, and if that was something that appealed to voters, that was entirely a matter for them. We can be pretty sure that no style consultant ever suggested he look like that or talk like that.

When faced with Cameron’s sixth-form debating tricks, Ed Miliband could do a lot worse than ask himself, ‘What would Robin Cook do in this situation?’ He wouldn’t care about whether his opponents’ position was more attractive, pressed more of the right focus-group buttons. He would sharply and clinically set about why his opponent’s arguments were not good enough. It seemed he never worried about whether something was the right thing to say. He trusted that his brains and his heart would win him the argument. And if Cook had come up against Cameron, he would have made him work harder than he has ever had to over the last four years.

It is very easy to see how Ed Miliband can lose next year’s general election. He will appear on daytime television, cook his adoring family a Quorn tagliatelli, and finally let us know who his favourite member of the The Saturdays is.

If Ed plays that kind of game - the Blair playbook - he will get destroyed, and rightly so. If he ever says, ‘Well, Fearne, it’s been a real pleasure meeting you,’ then Samantha Cameron may as well cancel the removal company straightaway.

If Ed Miliband is going to become prime minister, he has to ignore every media adviser who pushes him in that direction. There are many ways of winning an election. It may sound old-fashioned, but Labour’s best approach may simply be to win the argument. And wouldn’t politics benefit if it worked?