Tomato Sauce Strategy
Parliamentary sketch writers, more often than not, confine their observations to the goings on at Westminster, but in this example Ann Treneman from The Times shares her thoughts about Labour's plans to get fought on welfare.
Fighting with relish is Ed’s messy strategy
Ed Miliband gave a speech about how to make young people get out of bed and get a job Ray Tang/Rex Features
By Ann Treneman - The Times
To east London then, to see Ed Miliband give a speech aimed at saving Britain — and himself. It seemed a very un-Ed location. To get there, I walked down a street that was so hip hip that I kept looking for a hooray. Shoreditch is a place with more bike shops than pawnbrokers. I saw men wearing red velvet slippers — with tassels. There is a Banksy near by. There is, and here I rest my case, a cat café.
Fighting with relish is Ed’s messy strategyEd does not really fit in here. I tried to imagine Ed in velvet-tasselled loafers. Or in a cat café. How, I wondered, would Banksy draw Ed? I finally arrived, the only person not attached to a bicycle, at Rich Mix, the hipster emporium where they are celebrating the World Cup with a Brazilian culture festival called Joga Bola! Ed’s event, hosted by the think-tank IPPR, was on floor four.
In the lift, I ran into a fashionista friend.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded.
“Seeing Ed Miliband,” I ventured.
She looked confused and shocked at the same time, as if it were quite unthinkable that Ed would be in the building. She, of course, was on her way to see Erdem, the ultra hot British-Turkish designer who has his office here. I told her that Ed needed Erdem. “Yes,” she said, “but Erdem doesn’t need Ed.”
Ed’s speech was in a fringe theatre venue. The windows were covered with blackout blinds. Beforehand, we were served two kinds of giant cookies. When Ed came out from behind the screen, he looked exactly like he always does: geeky, goofy and ever so earnest. Ed is not, like Tony Blair, a camouflage politician. He is, for good or ill — and at the moment the polls, not to mention the Labour grandees like Lord Mandelson, favour the latter — authentically Ed.
The speech was all about how to make young people get out of bed and get a job. Labour has decided to offer something called the “youth allowance”, which provides training but not benefits to anyone under 21. Basically, it’s good for Labour’s budget, saving £65 million. For Ed, it’s all part of his economic revolution, where everyone in Britain has well-paid jobs, all based on his grand concept of “pre-distribution”.
Ed told us that, to find out more about young people and getting out of bed, he talked to one named Danny. “I spoke to him yesterday,” he told us. “I talked to him on the phone.” On the phone? I’m sorry but that is just ridiculous. How can you be a man of the people when you meet the people on the phone?
Afterwards, Ed took questions which were increasingly hostile until a woman from ITN asked, basically, if Ed’s leadership wasn’t mired in failure. She even compared him to Gordon Brown.
“Thanks for that nice question,” said Ed, flashing the teeth.
Ed stared at the horizon. It felt like, suddenly, he was in a movie. “I have got a big cause that I’m fighting for. And it is a tough fight.” He was fighting not for Labour but for Britain.
“And I relish the next ten months,” he said. “I relish the next ten months . . .”
I wondered if the record was stuck. “I relish the opportunity to fight for my vision of the country.”
Relish. Call it the tomato sauce strategy. It’s red and it’s Ed and, it must be said, messy.
