Unpopular but unsackable: Starmer's Marmite Miliband problem

Telegraph

01-04-2025

When Ed Miliband returned to the shadow cabinet to join Sir Keir Starmer 's team in April 2020, he was still getting over Labour's general election loss five years earlier.
The man memorably labelled 'Red Ed' by the Conservatives had been out of the frame since the aftermath of the 2015 vote, relegated to the back benches to watch the rise of Jeremy Corbyn.
He described his final years leading Labour – memorialised in a photograph of him eating a bacon sandwich during the 2014 local elections – as 'quite traumatic'.
Now his return to the front bench, having been appointed as Energy Security and Net Zero Secretary last year, has put Starmer in an awkward position.
On the one hand, the danger represented by the Doncaster North MP is far removed from the threat posed by younger thrusters such as Wes Streeting and Angela Rayner, who are considered leading contenders to replace their boss when the time comes.
'He's a man who isn't ever expected to wield the knife, because he's done the job before and was found wanting,' says John Curtice, a professor of politics at Strathclyde University and a respected pollster.
'If Starmer was to go tomorrow, we could identify some people who would be somewhat more likely to be leader than Ed Miliband.'
As ever with members of the Cabinet at any one time, there are some whispers in Whitehall that Miliband would still fight again for the leadership, but even his closest allies are unsure it would be worth it.
In the meantime, however, his position in the Cabinet carries a danger of a different kind. Miliband has become a Marmite figure both because of the radical policies he pursued while Labour leader and his championing of a net zero agenda that polls show is becoming increasingly unpopular with the public.
Unhelpfully, he carries the baggage of an embarrassing general election loss, after a campaign in which the Conservative Party had successfully portrayed him as a dangerous socialist or in the pocket (quite literally) of the SNP.
Now, he has the challenge of selling one of the most difficult policy areas, net zero, which surveys show is popular with Labour members but increasingly problematic when it comes to the general public.
While voters might support the idea of reaching net-zero emissions in principle, they are loath to make the lifestyle changes Miliband has championed, including the installation of heat pumps to replace their gas boilers and inconvenient low-range electric vehicles instead of petrol and diesel cars. On March 21, Miliband insisted that the Government was 'absolutely up for the fight' over net zero. But the extent to which Starmer and Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, will remain in the trenches with him is in doubt.
The most recent recommendations of the Climate Change Committee, the Government's official adviser on net zero, were that the public should cut back on the equivalent of two doner kebabs' worth of meat each week to help the country reach its target.
Even Starmer, a pescatarian who has always signed up to the net-zero target, rejected the latest advice, saying that achieving the target of net-zero emissions by 2050 'does not mean telling people how to run their lives'. But there was no such attempt by Miliband to distance himself from the recommendations.
The data show that the public would tend to agree with the Prime Minister. A recent poll, by Freshwater Strategy, found that 70 per cent of the public would rather the Government prioritise economic growth – a matter seen more as the business of politicians – over achieving net zero.
Starmer and his top team have undergone something of a conversion when it comes to net zero, championing the kind of pragmatism advocated by Rishi Sunak in response to the cost-of-living crisis. Labour's manifesto was underpinned by what advisers saw as a new form of industrial strategy, focused on using 'clean' energy to help boost economic growth.
Miliband's 'National Wealth Fund', which he personally drove into the manifesto, was one of the campaign's main announcements.
Nine months on, with the growth forecast slashed in half, the Treasury is becoming increasingly sceptical about any net-zero policies that could have an impact on economic growth.
'I think reality is hitting home,' says Graham Stringer, a veteran Labour backbencher and net-zero sceptic.
Once a pariah on the Labour benches, Stringer is finding himself aligned more closely than ever with parts of the Government – particularly advisers working on economic policy.
'The tight financial situation means people in the Treasury and people elsewhere are realising we cannot carry on with net zero,' he says. 'We need to have policies that reduce the cost of energy, before we have no industry left.'
The same trade-off has long been an issue for Westminster's political operators. Former Tory net-zero advisers have battle scars from trying to persuade the public of the merits of the policy during the Johnson and Sunak administrations.
After Sunak had created a stand-alone energy and net-zero ministry in February 2023, he appointed two of his closest allies in quick succession to run it – first Grant Shapps, then Claire Coutinho, who was special adviser to Sunak during his time as chief secretary to the Treasury.
Contrast that with the role of Miliband, who has gravitas and respect within the party – but lacks the close relationship that Shapps and Coutinho had with Downing Street.
When he objected to the idea of the Heathrow expansion, he was overruled. His concerns about delaying electric vehicle mandates have fallen on deaf ears in Downing Street. He has installed a heat pump in his own north London home, but few others have followed suit. When the Government needs a minister to go and defend Starmer on television, Miliband is almost never chosen.
With that in mind, the Energy Secretary is one of the most obvious candidates for a demotion at the next Cabinet reshuffle.
But despite the best work of some mischief-making government advisers, no one in Westminster really expects him to leave – unless he resigns on his own terms.
Vasil Lazarov, a pollster at Survation, has been running a Cabinet favourability survey directed only at Labour members.
The results, published for the first time in March in the house journal LabourList, found that Miliband is the most popular member of the Government, alongside Rayner. Reeves, who is relied upon the most by Starmer, came last.
'Cabinet favourability questions tend to be decided partly by favourability, but also by name recognition,' says Lazarov.
'Miliband is obviously known by most of the membership, which helps his figures.'
In other words, Miliband has something that few voters ever anticipated when they watched him on the 2015 campaign trail, memorably telling Jeremy Paxman: 'Hell yes, I'm tough enough.' He has star quality.
As a former leader, Miliband is much less popular than Sir Tony Blair, or even Corbyn, but he has a long association with the party that most of the Cabinet lack.
'One way you can interpret it is that, compared to the current Cabinet, he is doing quite well, but compared to past leadership he is not doing that well,' says Lazarov.
Nationally, 96 per cent of people know who Miliband is, according to a YouGov survey from January, in which he was given a popularity rating of 22 per cent – one point behind Rayner, who was recognised by only 80 per cent of the public. But even at the time that Miliband was appointed last July, YouGov pointed out that 42 per cent of the public held an unfavourable view of him.
So what does a prime minister do about a man like Ed Miliband?
The two men seem destined to drift inexorably apart on policy, with one scrambling for economic growth, and the other wedded to his net-zero principles.
Despite this, Miliband's popularity within Labour virtually guarantees his safety for now under a prime minister who will be nervous about further conflict with his party's grass roots, amid damaging rows over cuts to the welfare and foreign aid budgets.
Those close to No 10 say that Starmer is fiercely loyal to his old ally, and values his advice as a former party leader.
Miliband's friends likewise maintain that he would never resign to cause trouble for the Government.
But Starmer has long been known for his willingness to be ruthless, eventually. If the public turns on Miliband, the next emission from No 10 may yet be the man himself.