After initially dismissing him as unelectable, conservative commentators have gradually awoken to the reality that Ed Miliband has a good chance of becoming the next prime minister. The defection of left-leaning Liberal Democrats to Labour and of right-leaning Conservatives to UKIP, and the defeat of the proposed boundary changes, means that the electoral landscape is more favourable to Miliband’s party than previously thought.
But while acknowledging this psephological truth, commentators of left and right have charged the Labour leader with pursuing a “35% strategy” under which a coalition of the party’s core voters and Lib Dem refugees allows him to inch over the line in 2015. Miliband’s alleged want of ambition is contrasted with the big tent politics of Tony Blair, who successfully wooed such demographics as “Worcester woman” and “Mondeo Man”. Under a more overtly centre-left leader, Labour, it is claimed, is now fishing in a smaller pool. But this superficially plausible narrative represents a profound misreading of Miliband’s project. In reality, as Marcus Roberts argues in his forensic new report Labour’s Next Majority, the Labour leader is pursuing something closer to a 40% strategy.
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