After his election defeat in 2015, Ed Miliband grew a beard and started a podcast. The beard didn’t last but the podcast has. Co-presented with Geoff Lloyd, Reasons to be Cheerful turns policymaking into entertaining listening. Whether discussing the Green New Deal or electoral reform, they make the argument as wide-ranging as possible. Miliband’s new book, Go Big, which draws on his podcast, follows the same pattern. Here are ideas that really could transform the world.
Miliband reminds us that outlandish ideas can take time to go mainstream: the rationale for the NHS was seeded in 1909. In our own time, climate politics has gradually gone from an eccentric hobby horse to driving policy in the White House. Miliband devotes considerable space to the Green New Deal (which he has written about in Prospect), proposing a carbon army of 200,000 workers to make Britain’s homes more energy efficient. As well as saving the planet, this would also replace the jobs lost as we wean ourselves off fossil fuels.
There are some fascinating nuggets. In 2018-2019, the number of social homes in the UK decreased by 17,000; Alaska pioneered a version of universal basic income in the 1980s; the British care home provider Four Seasons is controlled by a Connecticut hedge fund; Preston council regenerated the city by borrowing from Lancashire County Council’s pension fund. All serve the argument that the state should take a more interventionist role in controlling the unruly forces of globalised capitalism.
If not all his suggestions stack up—do we really want to burden hospitals with supporting the local economy?—they are always thought-provoking. And there are amusing asides on Miliband’s passion for Dallas and love of Wallace and Gromit—mainly because its creator Aardman is owned by 75 per cent of its employees, not just because he resembles Wallace.
Miliband, now back in the Shadow Cabinet, declares that his book is not intended as a Labour manifesto. Political watchers might notice, though, that although Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham is quoted with lavish praise, Labour leader Keir Starmer is not mentioned once.
Go Big: How to Fix Our Worldby Ed Miliband (Bodley Head, £18.99)
