Miliband struggling, says Mandelson

Ed Miliband is "struggling" in key areas of his role as Labour leader, Lord Mandelson has said.

The former business secretary, an architect of New Labour, said the leader faced the "unenviable" task of trying to redefine the party at the same time as fighting the coalition on the economy.

Asked about criticism of Mr Miliband's leadership, Lord Mandelson said he found it "tedious and boring".

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "What I think Ed Miliband is doing, he's struggling with two things and they are not easy. One is that he is trying to oppose the Government on the economy where, legitimately or not, people will take different views.

"They think the Government's in the wrong place but in making an argument against what the Government is doing fighting the recession he is also sort of struggling with his own inherited legacy from the previous Labour government and they are not doing that easily or finely but nor is it simple to do.

"At exactly the same time he is struggling to invent a new left of centre political paradigm that isn't New Labour that, in a sense, takes lessons and experience from the last 15 years, not least from the experience of globalisation, revisit the issues to do with markets and inequalities and responsible capitalism, to sort of invent a new left of centre politics for the 21st century."

Lord Mandelson said he found criticism of
Ed Miliband's leadership of the Labour party 'tedious and boring'

He added: "It's a rather unenviable job which I think he is doing well in the circumstances but it is not easy."

Lord Mandelson had easy praise, however, for his successors at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS). He said: "If you see what (Business Secretary) Vince Cable is doing and what David Willetts in particular, the higher education and science minister, is doing - I read a speech of his the other day, I could have written every word of it myself - it's in a sense taking to a higher and more sophisticated level the sort of industrial policy thinking and actions that I was introducing when I came back to government.

"The only problem is this - it is done on such a ludicrously small scale."

Lord Mandelson said internationally the right wing had been "better at handling the rhetoric of austerity" and had tended to win the argument on "profligate" big government. The centre-left needs to fight back but "not by reverting to old arguments about state control and intervention".

Miliband: End the 'rip-off' charges

Ed Miliband has called for an end to Britain's "rip-off consumer culture", insisting the Government should intervene on exorbitant charges for savings, holidays, banking and parking.

The Labour leader urged David Cameron to take a tougher approach to "predatory" companies that exploited customers, and proposed the creation of a new consumer watchdog to limit pension fees, car parking charges and airline levies.

His comments to the Daily Telegraph come amid growing concern that families are being exploited by irresponsible companies at a time when they are struggling to cope with rising prices and austerity measures.

Mr Miliband said: "In every area, you have to call time on the surcharge culture. Making a fair profit is important but it can't be done in an underhand and predatory way. This is about power in relation to private services and how government can be on the consumer's side. Lots of businesses recognise this. It's part of how you build a competitive economy in the world."

He added: "It's about the rules that government sets. This is a specific argument about a number of private services to the public. (For example) we're not proposing to go back on taking the railways into private ownership but maybe in transition not enough was done to protect the public."

Mr Miliband said the plans would ultimately help business to become more competitive and points to America, where consumer regulation is tougher.

"People's living standards are squeezed as never before, and we have to do everything we can to relieve that burden," he said.

Ed Miliband has called for the creation
of a consumer watchdog to limit pension
fees, car parking charges and airline levies

The Labour leader identified several areas for immediate action. On savings fees he said pension firms should set out how much they are charging savers to invest, after research showed that up to 16 fees and levies can be applied to private schemes. If charges do not fall, total charges should be capped.

He said car parking charges at railway stations should be capped, along with season tickets and other fares; for banks, which make £2 billion annually from unauthorised overdraft fees, a new watchdog should have the power to intervene and outlaw excessive fees; and the big energy firms should be broken up and transparent pricing introduced to enable proper competition.

Mr Miliband also hit out at consumer helplines, saying it is unacceptable that people are charged "50p a minute just to complain", and criticised airline levies which mean travellers face a range of charges for baggage, paying with a credit card and even checking in without printing out a boarding pass.

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