Five things we’ve learnt from The Times’ Ed Miliband investigation

The dissection of Labour’s election defeat continues with a very thorough series of pieces in today’s Times by Rachel Sylvester and Michael Savage. Describing Ed Miliband’s tenure as leader as a ‘five-year suicide note’, the articles look at the countless errors of judgment and mistakes made by both Ed Miliband and those around him over the last five years. Here are five interesting things we’ve found out.

1. Philip Gould warned Miliband not to turn away from New Labour

New Labour’s renowned strategist and pollster Philip Gould warned Team Miliband early on that they were defending the wrong points of the last Labour government, including the economy:

‘Philip Gould was close to death and painfully weak with cancer but his political instincts were as strong as ever. Labour’s legendary strategist could not understand why Ed Miliband was turning his back on his party’s most popular achievements in power while failing to admit to what voters saw as mistakes. “I agree we concede and move on,” he told the leader’s pollster, James Morris, when he visited him at his home overlooking Regent’s Park in early 2011, “but this seems to be conceding on everything except the economy and I would do the opposite.