Eurosceptic Tories, who loathe the EU's Lisbon treaty, found it difficult to take aim at the man who ensured its ratification in parliament.
Jim Murphy, Labour's former Europe minister, has such a disarming manner that eurosceptics could barely lay a glove on him. Murphy also showed the skills which allowed him to capture one of the safest Tory seats in Scotland in 1997 when he advocated the passage of the treaty on the grounds of economic growth and jobs.
So Philip Hammond is likely to sit up in Washington, where he delivered a speech on the government's defence cuts, after the softly spoken Murphy launched a withering attack on the government's Strategic Defence and Security Review. This is what Murphy, the shadow defence secretary, told me of the SDSR, launched in October 2010:
The government's process has not survived the first contact with world events – the Arab spring, concerns about North Korea, heightened worries about Iran.
Murphy was scathing about the way in which the government scrapped the Nimrod surveillance aircraft, hinting that this has harmed Britain's Trident nuclear deterrent:
The government cut them up on live television. They treated probably the most expensive technically capable aircraft in our history like a second hand car. They just scrapped it and chopped it into pieces...Nimrod was the Rolls-Royce and it was treated like a second hand car sent to scrap. Nimrod was an important part of the nuclear deterrent because it gave you the ability to know which other submarines were in the water when you were deploying your nuclear submarines. When they left the west coast of Scotland you knew what was within a few hundred miles of them and what their unique signal would be.
The powerful image evoked by Murphy shows why he is one of Labour's most formidable communicators. But this is no ordinary rant from an opposition spokesman. Murphy's main message is that Labour now has to accept a significant proportion of the government's defence cuts.
Murphy thought the government was rash in the way it scrapped Nimrod and he would have done more to ensure that some of its capability was retained by refitting other aircraft with US technology. But he says Labour has to accept Nimrod has gone. The £2bn that will be saved over the next ten years from scrapping Nimrod is the largest defence saving that Labour will accept. In all Labour will accept £5bn of the government's defence cuts, Murphy has told me as Barack Obama announced $450bn cuts to the US defence budget. This figure will rise when Labour manages to work out precise figures on other cuts it will accept.
But there is a deeper point as Murphy follows the lead of Ed Balls who told the Independent last month that Labour would show it would "control public spending in a tough and disciplined way". Murphy says Labour must avoid the "populism" of opposing every spending cut:
It is important to be both credible and popular when it comes to defence investment and the economics of defence. There is a difference between populism and popularity. Credibility is the bridge away from populism and towards popularity. It is difficult to sustain popularity without genuine credibility. At a time on defence when the government is neither credible nor popular it is compulsory that Labour is both.
Murphy is talking about his defence brief, as he explains in an article for Progressonline. But there is a wider resonance for the Labour party which is embarking on an intense internal debate as David Cameron and George Osborne build up a commanding lead on the economy, according to the latest Guardian / ICM poll.
There is a case to be made against many of the cuts, according to Murphy. But this needs to be made from a "credible" position which can only be achieved if Labour shows it is willing to accept many of the cuts. This is the logical conclusion of agreeing that the fiscal deficit must be tackled.
The timing of Murphy's intervention is significant in domestic and international terms. On the domestic front it comes just as key Labour figures express doubts about the party's economic strategy. These concerns were highlighted in a pamphlet by Lord Mandelson's Policy Network think tank last month which criticised the "vagueness" of Labour's deficit reduction plans.
Murphy's intervention is also significant in international terms. It shows that Labour's approach to defence is within the Atlantic mainstream because Obama announced major cuts on Thursday. Philip Hammond was also in Washington explaining the cuts in Britain.
But Murphy will be hoping that his acceptance of some of the cuts will give him credibility in Washington for his other key message: that some of the cuts went too far. There are concerns in Washington about the scale of the British defence cuts. Murphy's description of the Rolls Royce Nimrod being turned into second hand scrap metal is likely to be noticed across the Atlantic.
UPDATE Friday, 5.45pm
In response to my interview with Jim Murphy, the Tories have wrongly accused Labour of failing to identify the £5bn in defence cuts. I have blogged about this.
Comments
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5 January 2012 10:20PM
Labour should be opposing the Tories, not cringing to them.
5 January 2012 10:26PM
Murphy is right about this. What is shoddy is the frankly pathetic attempt by the Guardian to present this as
1. A change In direction when he is following Labour policy.
2. Some sort of attack on Ed Miliband when it is in fact Labour policy. Miliband has said on any number of occasions Labour would have to make cuts but not as many.
The Guardians spinning of a biased editorial line into every story has turned it into a lib dem version of the Daily Mail.
5 January 2012 10:28PM
They'll please the City. Isn't Liam Bryne an ex-merchant Banker? Isn't he their policy man?
Alas for the selling out of what used to be a very great Labour Party, my sympathies to those campaigning for a Party that is merely a contingency for the establishment to ensure democracy does not occur and heaven forbid a policy agenda for the majority.......
5 January 2012 10:32PM
Labour should be opposing the Tories
Yes they should but with a well thought through rationale and not just shooting from the hip. The tories 'slash and burn' policies must be shown up for what they are but cuts are necessary, everyone knows that. We need Labour to show where they would cut and why but more than that they need to demonstrate that they know which are the right cuts at the right time with least harm to the population as a whole and not the socially divisive cuts that this ineffective coalition is engaged in.
5 January 2012 10:36PM
But opposing them when your own policy has no basis in the real world will only hurt their chances, because it'll show that they have no understanding of the current economic climate.
As Murphy says, yes, many cuts are coming too hard and too fast (and if it was just the Conservatives, it'd likely be even faster and harder), but you can't just say "no cuts at all". That would just show that Labour had learnt absolutely nothing about their previous economic failings (namely, spending more than we had, and not saving up in times of plenty, so we would be alright in times of hardship).
Frankly, Murphy sounds like a better choice for Labour leader than Milibland does.
5 January 2012 10:37PM
If Mandy's a key labour figure ... well... labour really are thoroughly screwed.
But I don't think he and his thinktank wonks are genuinely significant for labour. His sad crew are just having their last despairing moment of trying to hang on.
Sooner they're gone the better.
5 January 2012 10:44PM
Tax the rich rather than cutting the poor.
5 January 2012 10:46PM
Yesterday I opened up my web-browser to read the news.
Comments by a Labour politician were at the top.
But it was about Dianne Abbott and the ridiculous Tory-MP inspired Twitter witch hunt of a Labour MP that other Labour MPs (Chukka Umma) seemed incredibly desperate to jump in on (no, Abbott's comment wasn't "racist" - prejudiced is a far better term - God help us all if the likes of Louise Mensch now define this word).
Now this - "Let's just agree with the Tories".
What next? "Let's agree with the Lib Dems as well?"
Western politicians now have their new "nightmare' to deal with - economic collapse.
It gives them a purpose and something to threaten us all with. Keep people feeling scared and like they have no control.
Where are the big ideas? The kind of narrative that seeks to mould the world rather than remain terrified.
Labour look incredibly weak, their politicians and leaders like frightened rabbits.
At present, they remain unelectable.
5 January 2012 11:41PM
So Balls's plan B to try tackle a debt and deficit crisis by borrowing more is burried and Guardian are desparately trying to spin in Balls's his favour as if he has taken the lead on sound government finances. Balls's will appreciate Mr Watt's attempt to instruct the bbc on how to contextualise Muir's comments.
6 January 2012 12:07AM
Agreed. Five days into 2012 and I've had it with this paper.
6 January 2012 12:54AM
Why?
This really gets to the nub of what many didn't like about New Labour MPs. Even Hague promised we wouldn't be sucking up to Washington. Offering even tacit approval for new military adventures involving British forces - like provoking a "Gulf of Tonkin" incident & war with Iran perhaps? Certainly a Labour MP shouldn't be doing it.
The Blairites are clearly trying to regain control. This is about as far removed from Wilson's "no" to British troops for Vietnam, or Foot's unilateral Nuclear disarmament as Labour could get. If I were Miliband I'd fire the lot of them and rebuild a team that at least sings from the same hymn sheet. A more socialist one that at least gives people a choice.
6 January 2012 12:58AM
Defense is not the poor
6 January 2012 12:59AM
Murphy is laughable - as someone who knows aerospace industry well, Nimrod was considered to be the world's most best financed historical aircraft hobby club as the airframe was based on Comet which went out of production decades ago. All the existing airframes were unique and any spare part had to be engineered by seperately. Alternatives to running the Nimrod were in fractions of the Nimrod's cost.
Strategically , given Red Banner Northern Fleet went out of business in 1991, threat of Soviet nuclear attack boats was rather dated. Maybe Murphy was scared of the German U-boats then? Landlocked Taliban maybe?
As UK's Trident/Astute class is credible nuclear deterrent without any UK based airborne warning system.
If there was one weapon system UK was right to scrap in the Defence Review , it was the Nimrod.
6 January 2012 1:20AM
True.
Labour could be far braver on defence cuts. And if anything, have pushed for even deeper ones. You have to ask, why is Trident such a sacred cow now for Labour? If Labour were campaigning to use the money saved from scrapping that , they'd find a ready audience.
Clearly trying to be; The party of Defence , The party of the City, The party of Law and Order etc.. All the traditional Tory areas has left them a hollowed out shell of a party, with no guiding principles. A party that no sensible person could possibly have any great desire to vote for . They should play to their strengths and stop trying to please everyone .
6 January 2012 1:54AM
"Once we cut defence expenditure to the extent where our security is imperilled, we have no houses, we have no hospitals, we have no schools. We have a heap of cinders."
Denis Healey. Good man, and he was right on this.
6 January 2012 2:02AM
Why would the City be thrilled Labour want to cut some government spending instead of going cap in hand to the City to finance spending through more and more debt.
Interest payments on our national debt amount to £42 billion a year now, around half the total NHS budget and who do you think all that interest goes to? The fact that the Government has to go out and beg for money at auctions every few months to keep the country running is what gives the City so much power.
6 January 2012 2:45AM
As has every government for hundreds of years.
6 January 2012 3:05AM
The duty of the opposition is to be just that. Oppose any cuts and offer an
alternative. If Jim Murphy can't do that, he may as well join the Tory party
or for that matter the Libdems. The Labour leadership had better wet what he says.
6 January 2012 3:19AM
The dispute within Labour between Blairites like Jim and the mainstream is economic policy. Not whether there should be cuts - that's been policy since 2009 - but Keynesianism vs Monetarism.
Economically there's no contest - the only way out of this mess is to reinflate the economy. The current orthodoxy is austerity however (how's that working out for ya?!)
The Guardian continues to push for a Blairite Labour leader despite it not being what Labour wants or what the country needs. You've got to ask yourself why a paper which endorsed the Lib Dems at the last election, and continues to do so despite all the broken promises, should be listened to by anybody, let alone Labour members such as myself.
6 January 2012 7:10AM
It also shows how irrational polticians can be. By all means criticise the loss of a capability; but whether or not the airframes are scrapped (and how else do you scrap something other than like a car ?) or left standing in fields is a totally secondary and irrelvant issue.
6 January 2012 8:33AM
Don't be daft. The Guardian isn't a mouthpiece or an extenstion of the Labour Party you know. Who else is going to keep Labour on its toes and make sure that it doesn't take our votes for granted??
Biased my arse!
6 January 2012 9:08AM
We seem to have a Government who tries to sell UK manufactured Defence Equipment to other countries but always prefers to buy Equipment from the USA. Cameron talks about supporting our Manufacturing Base but in practice lets the MOD buy more expensive kit manufactured abroad.
6 January 2012 9:13AM
a 'withering' attack ?
what - like being hit by a dead sheep , you mean ?
ha !
6 January 2012 9:17AM
my goodness , you lot are desperate .
You really really think anyone who is anyone in Washington is listening to the Shadow Defence Secretary of a party which hasnt a hope of power for at least 2 more terms, hasnt a credible deficit reduction strategy and hasnt a credible leader ?
Wise up, gentlemen.
6 January 2012 11:02AM
As much as the left loves to hate the nuclear deterrent , going for unilateral disarmament was an election loser for Michael Foot in 1983 and given Iran has now nuclear weapons it will be a loser now. It would be hard to see UK retain it's seat in UN security council if we were just a conventional European power - global loss of prestige and it would infuriarate the Foreign Office types. You can forget about unilateral disarmament , Labour will not go for it.
That limits Miliband's options - you can either extend or renew Trident or replace it with other nuclear deterrent. Extending is just a short term soliution, replacement of SLBMs with ICBMS or bomber force would probably be EVEN more expensive so that leaves the renewal as only option.
You also have to know actually something about weapon systems before you comment : the real cost of Trident is not the missiles or warheads, it is delivery system ie. Astute class missle submarines, which are very much at cutting edge of submarine technology. The build programme and maintenance has generated tens of thousends of jobs here in Britain - kind of high tech engineering, manufacturing jobs which Labour prefers over flipping burgers or the City.
6 January 2012 11:03AM
"Labour should be opposing the Tories, not cringing to them."
Please, God, yes.
Let Labour go into the 2015 general election committed to:
1) telling people that you can borrow your way out of debt and that the appropriate response to a yawning surplus of expenditure over income at a time when lenders are becoming unwilling to tolerate excessive borrowing is to try to borrow even more and increase spending still further;
2) telling people that what we need is even more government and even more meddling by politicians in order to make us happier, richer and safer;
3) getting the UK into the Euro as fast as possible and agreeing to hand over tax-raising powers and a veto on spending to whatever structure France and Germany privately agree between them;
4) aspiring to increase immigration still further and insisting that anyone who wants to talk about its damaging effects should face criminal charges for "hate crime";
5) implementing one-sided nuclear disarmament by Britain.
Yes indeed, taking the opposite position to the Tories on every issue and refusing to accept that anything they say might be correct is likely to prove a sure-fire election winner.
6 January 2012 11:21AM
If you really want to take an axe on the defence without compromising UK's ability to project power across the globe , you should focus on rapid deployment of light infantry forces via airborne / naval units.
- scrap the heavy armored units , they have no 3rd Shock Army to fight when they roll over to West Germany. They are useless as attack helicopters do the job better.
- scrap most of the field artillery, brigade units can do the job and it only costs
- reduce frigates and destroyers and concentrate on aircraft carriers as they dominate the naval theatre
- reduce RAF Tornado fleet and phase out Typhoon when F-35 becomes available
6 January 2012 12:28PM
Very droll, MrBendy.
Although if we are to have a complete catalogue of Guardianista wet dreams, you missed out the election pledge: "public burning at the stake" for Margaret Thatcher instead of the (fictional) State Funeral. (Another Leftist obsession that plays out so well when appealing for the votes of Middle England.)
6 January 2012 12:29PM
A graph that everyone should see before they moan on about the size of public debt.
6 January 2012 12:51PM
Yeah right
Osbornomics is plunging the economy further into the red by destroying growth and creating a climate of fear. He is actually increasing the deficit through his policies-see the autumn statement
We could of course have Dave's wonderful new deregulated society-take away employee's rights, put Homer in charge of the fusion reactor (after all there is the "Health and Safety Monster" out there) remove all restrictions on child labour it worked wonderfully for production in the early Victorian period and in the developping world.
Isolate ourselves in our island-we can be Norway without the oil or Switzerland with 60 million people don't you know
6 January 2012 1:05PM
Getting there myself.
6 January 2012 2:36PM
Well because the City would rather the Government pay the interest on the very loans you mention, and what is this debt composed of? pensions schemes etc, other countries like China etc, and making sure the rich have a safe barrier should the worst occur in Europe. The City would rather have bailouts and debt payments made to them indirectly as they "manage" such arrangements as "middlemen". All roads lead to the City and ensuring confidence (despite its low level) is maintained in the stockmarkets as well and they will want to ensure interest rates do not climb as that again affects them. The City is not interested in the real economy it is only interested in ensuring continual flow of money to itself via long-term PFI and other arrangements and that is where most of our taxes go. They have successfully monopolised the whole system via control through shareholding etc that last thing they want is Governments spending money, they want to "invest" any money that exists and they want to choose when and where this will occur.