Ed Miliband has called Tony Blair’s claim that Net Zero is “doomed to fail” defeatist – and admits Reform could boot him out of his own seat. The Telegraph has more.
In a significant intervention last month, the former prime minister said that Net Zero was “doomed to fail” and that it was wrong that people were “being asked to make financial sacrifices and changes in lifestyle when they know that their impact on global emissions is minimal”.
The comments prompted fury inside Downing Street and Sir Tony later appeared to back down, saying Sir Keir Starmer’s Net Zero approach was “the right one”.
Speaking on The Rest is Politics podcast, Mr Miliband said: “The report itself, he wrote a foreword to the report, is perfectly unobjectionable… but what is disappointing about Tony’s foreword, and I have huge respect for Tony, is I think it is incredibly defeatist which is not what Tony is. It is really defeatist.” …
Net Zero has emerged as a dividing line between Labour and Reform ahead of the next election.
Mr Miliband also admitted on the podcast that he could lose his seat to the Right-wing party at the next general election.
The Energy Secretary, who has represented Doncaster North since 2005, said Reform was “a threat across the country”.
Asked whether he worried about keeping his seat, Mr Miliband said: “Look, I think Reform are a threat, yeah. I think Reform are a threat across the country.” …
An analysis of this month’s local election results, which saw Reform make sweeping gains, suggested Mr Miliband was set to lose his seat to the party at the next general election.
Electoral Calculus analysed the results from each of the hundreds of wards and used the results to predict what would happen in each of the 145 Westminster constituencies where a vote was held.
The analysis showed that if Doncaster residents were to vote for the same party at a general election as in the local elections, Reform would win 46% of the vote to Mr Miliband’s 29%.
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