Comfort zone or centre ground?

The Labour leadership contest got a bit more personal today when David Miliband appeared to launch a veiled attack on his brother Ed's campaign platform. In an article for today's Times, David has decided to deploy that old New Labour warning - no retreat to the comfort zone.

The legacy of New Labour is just how far the definition of the 'comfort zone' has changed. Labour's modernisation - a process that started with the expulsion of the militant tendency in the 1980s - seems to have led to criticism of anyone openly professing social democratic views.

David Miliband's comments about his brother's leadership campaign appear to be doing just that. Ed's platform is perfectly coherent: in seeking to reach out to the centre ground, Labour ignored many sensible - and potentially electorally popular - policy suggestions from its own grassroots.

Unreasonable? David seems to think so: "I want to look at the circumstances outside our tent, and how we should respond ... Opposition is necessary but insufficient. At worse it can take us back into our comfort zone – and our pantomime role in politics."

This is the result of a wider campaign from some within Labour to try to restore the reputation of Blair's 'centre ground' strategy at the crucial moment where pursuing such an agenda would be electoral suicide.

In last Saturday's Observer, Nick Cohen wrote an astonishingly audacious comment piece which appeared to label the entire body of Tony Blair's detractors as conspiracy theorists and crackpots: "Never forget that Blair is the most skilful politician in modern British history. Look at how he is pushing his opponents into the corner reserved for crackpots - not that they need much of a shove."

In his efforts at rehabilitation, Cohen attempts to play down the fact that Blair was an electoral liability for Labour - attaining levels of unpopularity unmatched during Brown's tenure as Prime Minister. One can only imagine the electoral carnage that would have ensued if Blair had persisted in No 10 until the 2005 general election.

The Labour leadership election appears to have narrowed to a two-horse race, and the differences between the Miliband brothers is less significant than is imagined. The important issue is what strategy the eventual leader will pursue.

Labour is at a cross roads. It can retreat to the real comfort of New Labour, or it can set about making a popular case for Social Democracy in the United Kingdom. If the party decides to pursue the former strategy it must be careful - moderate Social Democrats are unlikely to tolerate another 13 years of being hidden away like an awkward family secret.