Ed not doing the business |

Monday 28th November 2011 | 14:03

Ed not doing the business

Two of Labour's young hot prospects have today written a pamphlet on how the party can start to reconnect with business.

'Laboursbusiness.org.uk' by Alex Smith and Luke Bozier is intended as a positive contribution to the debate, although it does make clear that Labour is not currently doing enough to address business priorities.

But it's Smith's own views of the way Ed Miliband has handled business that could cause a few heart murmurs in Norman Shaw Buildings.

Alex, who worked in the Leader's inner circle, tells me that Miliband left business leaders - including those who had backed him financially - 'unimpressed'* when they met him. He tells me:

"Whenever there was a meeting with business, he tended to be unprepared and the meetings were rushed and truncated. He always made time for meeting other MPs and union people. But for business, it seemed to be perfunctory. He does them because he thinks he needs to do them."

Don't forget that often these are businesspeople who are sympathetic to Labour (and in some cases donors), not even the pin-striped enemy.

I hear that one participant at the Roland Rudd gathering (first highlighted by Guido) recently came away distinctly underwhelmed.

It may just be that all this is further proof the Labour leader's more academic approach. Yet it sounds as if Miliband is genuinely uninterested in chinwagging to businessmen and women and prefers the raw politics of meeting fellow MPs and his union backers.

Despite his comment today that he does not support strikes, the unions will be delighted that this small vignette suggests the Labour leader's heart does indeed lie on the left.

Blair was, of course the exact opposite, barely giving unions much time but devoting endless hours to business. Brown somehow managed to do both.

One thing's for sure. The next time EdM does a prawn cocktail offensive in the City, he's going to have to sound very, very interested indeed.

*FOONOTE: Alex has been talking to Dan Hodges too. He told Dan a similar tale:

"Ed just doesn't understand business. ...When I was working there we’d have business leaders coming in to meet him. But there was always something missing. They weren’t impressed.”

Leave a comment...

Geoff Tozer

19:04 |
28 Nov 2011
Recommended
27

God help this country if retarEd, and his minions get back in, none of them has had a proper job in their lives!

Rh-

20:02 |
28 Nov 2011
Recommended
26

this this should be a warning to anyone thinking of voting for Ed at a general election ... the private sector is what pays for the public. Pay it no heed, treat it with contempt and this country will be flushed down the pan faster than ed can move his families assets offshore

Stepney

21:38 |
28 Nov 2011
Recommended
20

Are you suprised? Me I having a heart attack of no suprise. Ed wouldn;t know a wealth creator if one came up and bit his a*rse. Like so may Westiminsterites who have never worked in the real world, or competed for business, or taken financial risks to succeed, he's happy to spend it but has not a jot of an idea where it comes from. The last three people left in the UK who actually make things can only sit and despair at the wilful ignorance of those in whose hands their futures depend. Lucky old us.

Graham Barker

22:25 |
28 Nov 2011
Recommended
6

Was the headline 'Ed not doing the business' inspired by a reading of Mario Puzo's The Godfather? If so, it conjures up an image of another activity that one struggles to associate with Ed M.

AndyN

10:17 |
29 Nov 2011
Recommended
10

Ed Miliband can't relate to anything that doesn't require a taxpayer-funded subsidy of some kind. He and his ilk simply see business as another thing to be taxed and regulated - and the more quangos required to oversee that process, the better.

Penfold

12:34 |
29 Nov 2011
Recommended
9

What does one expect of the son, and grandson of Marxist "thinkers" sic. Red Ed has grown up in the rarified atmosphere of extreme socialism and has spent his short life in political academe, totally divorced from reality. It is this left wing bunker mentality that has to be repudiated by the electorate. We must ensure that politicians have had a taste of the real coal face and worked, in real jobs, for real company's, with real people, NOT in some gilded protected environment where they only meet their own ilk and discuss their own politics.

Chas

18:59 |
01 Dec 2011
Recommended
1

I am amused that Ed Miliband's lack of interest, understanding or time for business is put down to his "more academic approach". May I suggest the following substitute phrase: "more ignorant approach"?

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