Local elections: Miliband attacked by Labour MP for letting Farage off hook

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/may/23/local-elections-ed-miliband-nigel-farage

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Ed Miliband ran a "tremendously ill-judged campaign" in which he failed to attack Nigel Farage on the mistaken grounds that Ukip would only damage the Conservative party, the Labour backbencher John Mann has said.

In a sign of rumblings in the Labour party over its mixed performance in the local elections, the MP for Bassetlaw condemned what he called the "so-called strategists" for failing to exploit Farage's admiration for Margaret Thatcher.

Mann told the Guardian: "It was a tremendously ill-judged campaign, in particular the deliberate decision made not to attack Ukip. Some of the so-called strategists at the top of the Labour party think Ukip doing well is good news because it will damage Cameron. Well, they need to get out of their ivory towers and get back into the real world."

The backbencher spoke out as the leaders of Britain's three main political parties woke up to the uncomfortable fact that England had caught up with the devolved nations and now had four main parties.

By lunchtime Ukip had made nearly 100 gains and deprived Labour of control of Thurrock council in the marginal parliamentary seat the party hopes to recapture from the Tories in next year's general election. The party won around 25% of the vote in wards it contested.

Farage declared that Ukip had entered the "Westminster hen house" and was on course to win seats in parliament at next year's general election. His party performed strongly across England in the local elections.

Labour received major setbacks in its northern heartlands, where Ukip appeared to eat into its support, prompting the former minister Graham Stringer to warn that Miliband lacked "immediate appeal". By lunchtime, with counting continuing, Labour had gained 153 seats – well short of the 490 gains expected by the psephologists Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher.

But Labour pulled off coups by winning David Cameron's favourite London council, Hammersmith and Fulham, as well as Redbridge, Merton and Cambridge.

The Conservatives are set to lose control of at least eight councils. But they captured Kingston-upon-Thames from the Lib Dems.

David Cameron said he understood the message from the voters, who he said wanted the government to work harder on issues such as welfare and immigration reform. "We will be working flat-out to demonstrate that we do have the answers for hard-working people," he said.

The prime minister rejected calls from Eurosceptic Tories to form a pact with Ukip before next year's general election. He told Sky News: "We are the Conservative party. We don't do pacts and deals. We are fighting all-out for an all-out win at the next election."

The strongest internal party rumblings were in the Labour party as veteran figures raised questions about the leadership's campaign for the European and local elections. A debate that had been taking place behind closed doors burst into the open when Mann said the leadership should have done more to attack Ukip.

He told the Guardian: "We should be attacking Ukip over their policies on the economy, on taxation, on their policies on the NHS and, in particular in the north of England, we should have billboards at this election with Nigel Farage with his Margaret Thatcher mug. It was not an accidental strategy, it was a deliberate strategy and the strategists have got a hell of a lot of explaining to do. They called this wrong."

The leadership insisted Miliband had attacked Ukip and had highlighted Farage's admiration for Thatcher. But the leadership took a deliberate decision to follow Barack Obama's approach to the insurgent Tea Party in the US.

A source said: "You do not deal with an anti-politics party by calling them names. What you should do is call them out."

But Mann said he and other critics felt excluded from decision making. He said: "There is a section of the Labour party whose views are not being listened to and the broad coalition that forms the Labour party is too narrow. Those of us who are oiks are not invited to contribute and are not listened to. If we continue to be sidelined then Labour can't win the election – our appeal is too narrow.

Farage travelled to the swing seat of Thurrock in Essex where Ukip deprived Labour of control of the council. "The Ukip fox is in the Westminster hen house," the Ukip leader said. "There are areas of the country where now we have got an imprint in local government. Under the first-past-the-post system we are serious players."

But Farage admitted Ukip had struggled to make an impression in London. "London is a younger demographic but the real reason we are not as strong in London as we are just on the other side of the M25 is political parties rely very heavily on voluntary structure and our voluntary structure is 12 to 18 months behind the rest of the country. There is absolutely no reason why, in many parts of London, we can't do better next year than we have done this year."