While he hasn’t gone as far as his old comrade-in-arms Peter Mandelson, who warned that Ed Miliband’s energy price freeze risked taking Labour “backwards”, Tony Blair has signalled his unease with Ed Miliband’s policy agenda. He told Sky News:
I’m not really going to comment on Ed’s conference speech. It seemed to go down very well with people and was excellently delivered, I think. But I’m not going to comment on the policy.
He added:
He’s got the job of being leader of the opposition. I did that job for three years, I know how tough it is, I’m not going to get in his way.
Blair’s explicit refusal to comment is strong evidence of his opposition to the policy. When he supports Miliband, as in the case of trade union reform, he says so.
But with the exception of Blair, it is striking that not one Labour figure has echoed Mandelson’s concerns, with many rebutting him (see Stephen Twigg’s piece on The Staggers). Alastair Campbell, for instance, tweeted: “Peter M wrong re energy policy being shift to left. It is putting consumer first v anti competitive force. More New Deal than old Labour”.
Elsewhere, Andrew Adonis has smartly noted that energy companies similarly threatened to withdraw investment when New Labour announced its windfall tax on them. He tweeted: “Labour’s windfall tax ‘will undermine our ability to invest, affect jobs and increase prices.’ Yorkshire Electricity 1996 on Tony Blair” and “We may have to cut our investment programme if we face a windfall tax.’ London Electricity 1996”.
And as the FT‘s economics editor Chris Giles points out, “Even though the Labour party cannot know how much utility bills would go up without the freeze, it is nevertheless saying that households would see a £120 benefit. If true, that is the equivalent of a £3bn tax on energy companies – which is smaller than the £5.2bn windfall tax the Blair government imposed on the utilities in 1997.”
Content from our partners
Related
