If the Labour leadership candidates have found it easy to distance themselves from Ed Miliband’s approach, it is partly because they never believed in it from the start. None of the contenders (Andy Burnham, Yvette Cooper, Mary Creagh and Liz Kendall) endorsed him in 2010 and three preferred his brother. They always doubted that his left-aligned strategy would succeed in a quietly conservative England. The election result confirmed their view.
All of Miliband’s putative successors have positioned themselves to his right. Kendall has argued that the 50p income-tax rate should not be permanent. Cooper has called for the party to end its opposition to a 20 per cent corporation-tax rate. Even Burnham, the most left-leaning candidate, has rejected a mansion tax as “the politics of envy” and has criticised Miliband as insufficiently pro-business. All have said that the last Labour government should have run a Budget surplus before the financial crash.
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