What Does Ed Miliband Know of Liberalism?

As if to prove the point of this post, Ed Miliband pops up in the Guardian to treat Liberal Democrat voters as though they’re lost sheep who should return to the Labour fold. Apparently the Lib Dem leadership has led the party into government and abandoned its members who should, natch, return home to Labour. Why you would want to swap power for opposition remains mysterious but there you have it.

One thing Miliband does make clear, mind you, is that he has no understanding of what the term “liberal” means. )Or, to be fair, perhaps just a different understanding from me.) In Miliband’s World markets are a betrayal of liberalism. Indeed he goes further: free markets “devastate the proud legacy of liberalism”. This must count as news for many of us. And for Hayek and Friedman too, both of whom were liberals. According to Miliband Minor:

Our society is at risk of being reshaped in ways that will devastate the proud legacy of liberalism.