I spent this morning with Ed Miliband on a trip to a factory in Sunderland. Miliband was
visiting the Liebherr plant there, which manufactures cranes.
The centerpiece of the visit was a Q&A with the workforce. Now, a factory in the North East is not the toughest venue for a Labour leader to play. But Miliband appeared far more comfortable in this setting than he does when giving a traditional speech from behind a podium.
Unlike Miliband’s Q&A at Labour conference, the questions were not softballs or traditional left-wing fare. One set of three questions were: why don’t we close the borders, bring back national service and do more to clamp down on benefit cheats.
Miliband was happy to point to a few areas where he accepted Labour went wrong in government. He conceded that ‘we thought for too long we have financial services that’ll produce lots of good jobs and the rest will be low skilled, low paid.
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