A couple of weeks ago Janice Turner interviewed me for Red Magazine about the urgent need to increase female representation in government. You can read the interview below: The first thing Ed Miliband asks as we meet outside the Leader of the Opposition’s office is ‘How’s your mum?’ I’ve met him several times before, including in his constituency, Doncaster North, where I grew up and my mother, now 90, still lives. Since I was there to report on his speech at a local Labour Party fundraiser, he arranged to pick me up at her house and dropped in for a chat. Politicians are often charming, but Miliband was more than that: he was kind, solicitous. He asked my old ma – who was a bit freaked out by her unexpected visitor – about my father’s recent death and properly listened to her reply. Empathy is Ed Miliband’s new political buzzword. It is the quality he feels British politics lacks. In a recent speech he lamented that empathy and decency were valued less than the TV-friendly presentational skills at which David Cameron excels. ‘I’m not from central casting,’ he said. ‘You can find people who are more square-jawed. More chiselled. Look less like Wallace.’ And, he added, referring to his most infamous photo opportunity, ‘You could probably even find people who look better eating a bacon sandwich.’ But the peculiar thing about Ed Miliband is that in the flesh he is rather attractive. At over six-feet tall in his well-cut blue Savile Row suit, Miliband looks lean; his hair is thick and shiny; his brown eyes are kind and warm; he has clear olive skin. He is just one of those unlucky people – like Cherie Blair – who always looks weird on TV. As for empathy, I’ve watched Miliband talk to strangers on trains, sixth formers at his old north London comprehensive, draw the raffle at that Doncaster Labour fundraiser, tie loosened, making off-the-cuff jokes to taciturn, hard-to-impress Yorkshire folk. He has a lovely way with people. On the Red shoot, the photographer passes on a loom band made by his young daughter. ‘How lovely,’ says Miliband, ‘shall I write her a little note?’ And he does. If only every voter in Britain could meet him personally. There is nothing grand or distant about him: he chats to the mums on the Red team about the trials of getting a first-choice school place. Indeed he is so unintimidating, so non-alpha male in his bearing, that after a while they ignore him and chat among themselves. Miliband certainly has empathy, but charisma? Not so much. While the world may not need another strutting testosteronesozzled male leader, part of leadership is about presentation. At his recent photo op with Barack Obama, Miliband looked like a kid who’d won a competition to meet the president. People, I say, worry that as PM he’ll have to deal with Putin at a G20 summit. ‘People will make their own judgement at the election,’ he says with some exasperation. ‘I’m not saying that having a photo taken and all of that isn’t part of the business. But people hate our political culture: you’ve got to ask why a decreasing number of people are interested in politics. And I think part of it is they think we are obsessed with triviality; superficiality, not substance.’ As for being strong, he says: ‘Look, I am the person who stopped Rupert Murdoch over phone hacking, I stopped the Daily Mail over my dad [saying that as a Communist he “hated Britain”], I stopped the energy companies over their gas and electricity prices, banks over their failure to lend to small businesses... Now if you take all of those things, my leadership has been characterised by being willing to take strong stands as a matter of principle.’ So why then did you contradict your anti-Murdoch stance by posing with a copy of The Sun? It seemed so weak. ‘I just thought I was promoting England’s World Cup bid,’ he says. ‘The easy thing would be never to admit I’d made a mistake.’ But Miliband did, unlike David Cameron who hugged huskies before the election, then after talked about environmental issues as ‘green crap’. Yet people might forgive Miliband’s perceived ‘weirdness’ and PR gaffes, if he had an inspiring vision for Britain. Miliband is a geek, an Oxford educated scholar, the son of a Marxist academic, a self-confessed ‘square’ who claims he can complete a Rubik’s cube in 90 seconds. As Mark Zuckerberg proved, no one minds a geek, if they have a great idea. But four years into his leadership, if Miliband has one, it is hard to pin down. ‘Well, the fundamental point,’ he says, ‘is that Britain works for a few people at the top; it doesn’t work for most people, the squeezed middle.’ He says Labour will offer 25 hours a week free nursery care for three to four year olds, build more homes, help those on zero-hour contracts and low wages. They are also looking at cutting university tuition fees. But wasn’t that the policy which had young people voting in droves in 2010 for the LibDems, only to be betrayed when in coalition the party voted to double fees? ‘That’s why we’re working hard on this policy to make sure we get it right and it’s affordable. I just think the burden of debt is a massive problem for young people.’ But with the economy picking up and the Tories having successfully promulgated the idea that Labour was responsible for the recession, will voters trust them again? ‘When I meet people,’ he says, ‘they don’t say the economy is fixed. They say they’re working harder for less money, the bills are going up but our wages aren’t rising. Of course we welcome any growth, but for many people it feels like a recovery for somebody else.’ What has changed under his leadership is the representation of women. Gordon Brown was accused of using female ministers as ‘windowdressing’: inviting them to Cabinet meetings but not giving them power. But now 11 out of 27 full Shadow Cabinet members (40%) are women, including major roles such as the Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and Shadow Deputy PM Harriet Harman. And Ed Miliband says that his Labour Government would have a gender-equal Cabinet. ‘I’m proud of the fact that there are more women in the Shadow Cabinet – but it’s not enough. We’ve got to get to 50% of women MPs in Parliament for Labour.’ So gender parity is a promise? ‘Cameron did a target and then didn’t make it. I want to let my actions speak for themselves, but I want to get to 50%, yes.’ We meet a week before he leaves for his annual holiday, a villa in the south of France where he’ll go with his wife Justine, their two young sons and her parents. He plans to spend it reading JK Rowling’s The Silkworm ‘not just economics books’. He’s not a great sightseer: ‘My mum used to drag me round churches in France, asking the tour guide difficult questions. I used to feel embarrassed.’ In his Westminster office are photos of Justine, a barrister, and drawings and hand-prints by Daniel and Sam, five and three. The hardest thing about his job, he says, is how little he sees his sons. He tries to keep one day of his weekend free, taking them to visit his mother who lives nearby in north London, or this Sunday going to Tate Modern where his boys enjoyed the Matisse exhibition. Do people recognise him? ‘Less than when I’m in a suit,’ he says. Since his sons are up at 6.30am he spends most time with them before school watching the Octonauts or Chuggington. ‘My dad used to tell me stories about these two sheep on the Yorkshire moors called Boo-Boo and Hee-Hee. And I started telling them, too. But now my sons fill the stories in themselves.’ There is talk that Justine, whom I’ve met, a calm, cheerful, easy-going woman, is about to step into the election spotlight because her presence makes Miliband seem ‘more normal’. ‘It’s certainly not the way I see it,’ says Miliband. He reiterates that Justine’s priorities are her job, her children and supporting him ‘in that order’. Is she ever upset by the criticism he receives? ‘When we went into this, we knew it was hard,’ he says. ‘We’re trying to go from losing an election in 2010 to winning in 2015.’ It sounds a relentless and exhausting life of late nights poring over policy, endless travel around the country and constituency functions or TV interviews at weekends. Miliband has little room for anything but work and family. And he put the former first, when he defeated his brother for the Labour leadership. Has the rift with David healed now he lives in New York? ‘Hmm,’ he says uncertainly. ‘It’s hard, but yes. We talk about politics, about my mum, what’s going on with his kids and my kids... you know.’ I ask if he keeps up with old friends. ‘It’s difficult. I am very conscious that politics can put a sort of pause button on some of those relationships.’ He doesn’t seem to have time for going to the theatre or cinema, but his one obsession after years of studying in America is baseball: a picture of his beloved Boston Red Sox is displayed in his office. He did, however, enjoy Danish dramas The Killing and The Bridge. ‘You know Saga Norén [in The Bridge]? Such an unconventional heroine, don’t you think?’ I agree that the Swedish detective, who is said to have Aspergers syndrome, a form of autism, is a great character. ‘The charisma of imperfection,’ says Miliband, and intrigued by the phrase I ask if it is his. ‘It was used about Bill Clinton,’ he replies. I wonder if he mentioned it because that’s how he wants to be seen: attractive in his unconventionality? ‘That’s not for me to say,’ he smiles. But while Labour is still ahead in the polls, his individual ratings are below Nick Clegg’s: in June, 22% of British people thought Miliband was ready to be PM. Does he fear he’s a liability to his party? ‘Some people say I’m not going to win the election, but I think we’re in a position to do so. Let the polls take care of themselves.’ The Tories’ main election strategy seems to consist of attacking his personality and leadership. Does it get him down? ‘It’s a badge of honour,’ he says defiantly. ‘It’s because we’re going to win.’ redonline.co.uk/red-women/interviews/ed-miliband-pictures
Posted on: Mon, 01 Sep 2014 11:51:07 +0000
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