Politics: Why a double dip won’t save Ed Miliband

It wasn’t meant to be this way. The Tories used to joke that after a year and a half in office they would be the most unpopular government in history. Instead, they find themselves five points ahead in the polls. To their surprise, and Labour’s consternation, they are in a far stronger position now than they were at the last election.

To understand what’s going on, look no further than this week’s vote on welfare reform. It epitomised three of the most important trends in British politics: the addition of a harder edge to the Tory modernising agenda, the strategic confusion afflicting Labour, and the disconnect between the Lib Dem leaders and their party. Together, these trends help explain why the Tories are ahead even as the economy is contracting. At the next election, they may well deliver a Conservative majority.

The Tory failure to win outright in 2010 weighed heavily on George Osborne, the party’s chief electoral strategist. In office, he has continued to plan for electoral success, but he has changed his strategy. The focus on wooing Liberal Democrat voters with liberal stances on cultural issues, civil liberties and the environment has been replaced with a more direct effort to attract Labour supporters. Osborne has pushed a number of American-style ‘wedge issues’, designed to split the Labour leadership from sections of its electoral support. One of these is the benefits cap that he announced at the first post-election Tory conference. Osborne declared that it would mean that ‘no family on out-of-work benefits will get more than the average family gets by going out to work’. This will save money, but it will also, he hopes, tap into the public’s anger at the standard of living enjoyed by some of those who don’t work. To ensure that his cap was politically watertight, he excluded the disabled, war widows and the working poor.

The trap was hardly concealed, but Labour still walked into it. They voted against the bill, saying they were for a cap in principle, just against this one. But there’s no getting away from the fact that they have now voted repeatedly against a measure backed by two thirds of their supporters. In doing so, they have reinforced one of their biggest electoral vulnerabilities: the sense that they are the party for those who don’t work. Osborne and co. are overjoyed to see this argument continue. ‘It looks like we’ll be defeated again in the Lords,’ one senior Tory told me gleefully on Tuesday morning. The Conservatives know that the longer they can keep this row going, the better it will be for them. It dramatises what until now has been a fairly dry debate about fairness, and places them firmly on the side of public opinion.

The debate also illustrates another point: compassionate conservatism gives the Tories room to be far tougher on welfare than they otherwise would be. Claims that Iain Duncan Smith wants to ‘punish the poor’ have not resonated because he is seen to be genuinely concerned about them. His decision to talk about welfare reform in terms of saving lives, not money, makes it far harder for the left and its spiritual allies to attack him.

Labour, meanwhile, is struggling in the polls because its policy positions are too convoluted. Far too often Labour spokesmen try to have things both ways. They are for the cap in principle, but against it in practice. They are against the cuts now, but might accept them by 2015. They think Cameron’s veto was a ‘diplomatic disaster’, but won’t say if they would have signed the proposed treaty. One Liberal Democrat says, ‘They remind me of how we used to be.’

There is now a low level of chatter about Ed Miliband’s leadership. Much of the criticism of him is unfair; sections of the press will never forgive him for upsetting their confident predictions that his brother David would win the leadership. But he has undoubtedly made mistakes. He might be able to do a Rubik’s Cube in a minute and a half, but he needs to communicate his policies even faster than that. The public gives leaders of the opposition seconds, not minutes, to explain themselves. Miliband has also failed to appreciate the need for tactical victories. In the leadership election, he ran as the candidate who would move away from the day-to-day gimmickry of the Blair-Brown years. But if you go too long without something to show your own side and the press, you undermine confidence in your leadership.

Most important, though, is Miliband’s failure to come to terms with the legacy of the last Labour government. His party cannot win back any kind of reputation for economic competence until it accepts its failure to control the public finances. Until Labour regains the public’s trust on the economy, bad economic news will drive voters not away from Cameron and Osborne but towards them. It is hard, however, to see how Labour can rebuild its fiscal reputation while Ed Balls is shadow chancellor.

For their part, Nick Clegg’s team are in better spirits than they have been for months. They know that, as long as the political pack is hunting Miliband, they will be left in peace. But there is a problem: they cannot boast about the coalition’s achievements because their party does not support the coalition’s agenda. Tellingly, Paddy Ashdown and Shirley Williams, the figures Clegg cites as the modern-day exemplars of the party’s two traditions, both rebelled and voted to amend the cap. One Clegg aide concedes that even if he could get the benefit cap put on the party’s leaflets, ‘the activists wouldn’t deliver them’.

The Tories, meanwhile, are enjoying a renewed sense of unity. Iain Duncan Smith, not a natural team player, has been vigorously defending the benefit cap this week despite his initial concerns about it.

Cameron’s party has much to do before it can win a majority in 2015. For one thing, it will need to improve its standing with ethnic minority voters if it is to win the seats it needs in the West Midlands and the North. But a Tory majority does now appear to be the most likely result of the next election.