Ed Miliband: the man to blame for the wreckage of this Labour government |
Who broke Britain? Welcome to The i Paper’s opinion series in which our range of experts tackle this question and identify the individuals whose decisions caused the country’s biggest problems.
• David Cameron: The unlikely villain who casually killed the Conservative Party
• Tony Blair: A sincere deceiver who broke Britain’s trust on migration
• Nigel Farage’s great project is to destroy the country he claims to love
• The Frenchman whose wild ideas poisoned our politics and economy
• Why are trains so bad in Britain? The answer begins with Ernest Marples
The Labour Party is sick. Eighteen months after winning a vast majority that should have ensured a full term of parliamentary dominance, Keir Starmer’s government is in the doldrums, with no signal achievements to its name and serious talk of a leadership change.
It’s worth asking who to blame. Those to the right would pin Labour’s organisational and intellectual rot on the Corbyn years; those to the left would tell you it all started with Tony Blair. Allow me to be a true centrist and split the difference: the leader who broke Labour — and in doing so, broke Britain — was Ed Miliband.
Miliband entrenched Labour’s worst habits of self-loathing and internal schism. Not only did he lose one general election, but he set the stage for even worse losses by paving the........