Miliband tells the unions ‘tough’

Ed Miliband has just done a TV clip full of the kind of quotes that politicians love using. In an interview with Nick Robinson (above), the Labour leader declared that ‘I’m leading this party and making the difficult decisions. And if people don’t like it, I’m afraid it’s tough, because that is the way I’ve got to lead this party’. It seems that Miliband has decided to pivot off the attack on him by the Unite and GMB unions, to use them to try and show the electorate that he’s his own man and is fiscally credible.

The worry among some Labour supporters is that Unite, Labour’s biggest financial backer, walks away from the party in disgust at its support for the public sector pay freeze. But I suspect that if Unite did disaffiliate – something which becomes particularly likely if it merges with the Public and Commercial Services Union run by the hard leftist Mark Serwotka – the financial cost would be made up for by the political gain for Miliband of being perceived to have stood up to his internal critics.