Ed Miliband determined to learn Black Country lessons

Ed Miliband is seen as the strongest competitor to his own brother, David, in the Labour leadership election. He talks to Dan Wainwright.

Labour lost some important Black Country seats at the General Election.

Ed Miliband is keen to change that if he becomes the party's leader.

After a lunchtime hustings against the other four contenders, including his own brother David, the younger Miliband came to Wolverhampton to meet an invited audience at the city's Slade Rooms in Broad Street.

MPs like Wolverhampton's Rob Marris and Stourbridge's Lynda Waltho lost their seats on May 6 while Halesowen and Rowley Regis and Dudley South fell to the Tories after the Labour MPs stood down.

"There's a lesson about politics from the Black Country that you can't take any areas for granted any more", 40-year-old Ed Miliband says.

"People lost a sense of who we are for and what we believe.

"We started as a party of the windfall tax and ended up as the party that was defending bankers' bonuses.

"We have to recognise where we went right and wrong."

Mr Miliband has made it part of his campaign to get the minimum wage above £7 an hour.

"That's so important", he says. "You shouldn't be left in poverty if you're working.

"These are bread and butter policies."

But he does seem to have rowed back from Labour policies that were core to the past 13 years - he wants tuition fees replaced with a graduate tax and believes the Iraq war was based to heavily on Britain's alliance with America.

"I wasn't in Parliament in that period. I was elected in 2005", he says.

"I don't think the question is who voted for what. The question is who can best face up to where we went wrong.

"We can look again at our policy. I've looked at tuition fees. I don't see how we can be the party of aspiration but say "by the way you're going to be burdened with massive debt".

"We had a managerial solution. If people were unafraid of debt it would be all right. But they are afraid of debt. "

But the former energy and climate change secretary says the party should face up to what went wrong on Iraq.

"I respect people who voted for and against the war but it was harmful to our international reputation and the trust in government", he says.

"This is a change election for Labour and the question is who is going to be the best person to bring that change."

Mr Miliband wants to bring the Black Country back into the Labour fold. Gordon Brown famously phoned the leader of Wolverhampton's Labour group Councillor Roger Lawrence to apologise when the party lost control of the city council in 2008.

But he doesn't want to blame Gordon Brown for the party's failings.

"The 10p tax rate sent people a very strange people about where we stood", he says. "When you're in government for 13 years people don't give you the benefit of the doubt.

"It was difficult for Gordon. He came in after 10 years. But he was the person who saved the world when it came to the financial crisis.

"The public aren't looking for the perfect politician but they are looking for someone who will stand up and say where we got it wrong.

"We all have to take responsibility. The problem for Labour is for years we were anti-aspirational. Then we allowed people (the bankers) to walk off with millions of pounds when they hadn't done the right thing.

"We came too late to having a modern manufacturing policy, which we needed to support the Black Country.

"We did think it was important but we didn't recognise that government's role is backing up manufacturing."

The sibling rivalry between the Milibands has so far been perfectly cordial. But will Ed give David a cushy role in his shadow cabinet?

"That's a measuring the curtains type of question, as in measuring the curtains of the leader's office when I haven't won", he says.

"David's a very intelligent person and win or lose he is a fantastic asset to the Labour party.

"It's not that I don't think he's the right man. It's just I think I am.

"Unless we face up to where we went wrong we're not going to succeed in the future."