Damian McBride attacks Ed Miliband's policies as a 'steaming pile of fudge'

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jul/29/damian-mcbride-attacks-ed-miliband-dysfunctional

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Gordon Brown's former spin doctor Damian McBride has attacked the effectiveness of Ed Miliband, saying his policies were a "great, steaming pile of fudge".

The ex-Treasury adviser, who was sacked for plotting to spread smears about senior Tories, warned that Labour currently has "no clear idea who its target audience is, no positive messages to communicate to anyone about why they should vote for the party, no policies which will persuade them, and is being run in a totally dysfunctional way."

It comes nine months after McBride caused a furore by publishing his memoirs at the same time as Labour's autumn conference, lifting the lid on his own dark arts of media manipulation under the last government. His latest intervention in politics comes in a new epilogue to the book, Power Trip, from which extracts are being serialised in the Daily Mail ahead of its paperback release.

While stressing that he believes Miliband will win the election, McBride also offered some blunt advice. "If Labour currently has central, underlying messages that it is trying to communicate to the electorate about itself, its policies, and its leader, the best you could say at present is that it's not quite coming across," McBride wrote.

"If the message is 'We're not the Tories or the Lib Dems, and you hate them', that may work up to a point, but it won't do much for those people who would happily express their antipathy by voting for Ukip or just staying at home, let alone those who hate Labour as well. Even the 'cost of living' argument – for which read 'Those Tory toffs haven't got a clue what your life's like' – relies on the electorate accepting that Labour has some better appreciation of those realities."

He also said Miliband should "start involving, consulting and using the whole of his team – not just his small circle of like-minded advisers and trusted shadow ministers, but all of his shadow cabinet, all his most talented backbenchers, and all of the variously talented staff employed by the Labour party, 99% of whom could currently be forgiven for asking themselves: Should we all go home?"

Despite McBride's attack, Miliband is consistently ahead in the polls and set to win the general election on current predictions. A new ComRes poll for the Independent put Labour six points ahead of the Conservatives, while a survey by former Tory donor Lord Ashcroft found the party has a two-point lead.

Some of McBride's criticisms have also already been pre-empted by Miliband, who gave a speech making a virtue out of the fact he is not a politician from central casting. Rejecting modern image-based politics, he contrasted his own focus on substance with Cameron, who "made his name as leader of the opposition for some fantastic photos, like hanging out with huskies in the Arctic Circle."

McBride advised Mr Miliband to present himself as "a Boris Johnson or Nigel Farage-style outsider, the opposite of the carefully-manicured modern politician designed by a committee of PR advisers".