Miliband takes a hard line on HS2 rail rebel Darling

Labour leader Ed Miliband has warned that former chancellor Alistair Darling will not join the shadow cabinet unless he stops criticising high-speed rail.

It had been rumoured that Labour was about to drop its support for the multi-billion pound infrastructure project at the party’s annual conference.

But as the summit gets under way in Brighton today, Miliband has used an interview with The Sunday Post to reaffirm his support for the landmark project.

High-speed rail known as HS2 is set to connect London, Birmingham and Manchester. Long-term plans include extending to Scotland some time in the future.

Miliband said: “I support HS2 and I think it’s the right thing to do for the country.

“People should be clear we support HS2 but it’s absolutely right that we make sure it passes the value for money test.”

Despite green-lighting the project during his time as Transport Secretary under Tony Blair and as Chancellor in Gordon Brown’s government Darling recently described the project as “foolish” and warned the cost of HS2 could “spiral out of control”.

And Miliband set out what that means for any hope the Edinburgh South West MP has of returning to the frontline at Westminster. He explained: “Alistair is clearly now against HS2. That’s not my position.

“The Shadow Cabinet as well as the Cabinet has collective responsibility.”

Miliband insists that rules Darling out of the shadow cabinet because under the terms of collective responsibility everyone in Miliband’s team must publicly sign up to the same views.

However the clamour to recall Darling to the front bench is only expected to become louder over the next year. He’s already largely credited with averting the worst of the financial crash in 2008. This time next year he’s expected to be riding high after victory in the Scottish independence referendum.

Just as Darling deflects questions about returning to the front bench (with just enough hint that he’d be happy to come back) so Miliband leaves the door open by praising the former chancellor’s work with the pro-union Better Together

campaign.

He said: “Alistair is doing an outstanding job. It’s very important to have someone of his experience running a cross-party campaign.”

Darling has even been whispered about as a possible Labour leader should Miliband fail to get his act together sufficiently before the 2015 election.

Labour’s summer was bookended by the start and finish of the Falkirk selection fiasco and characterised by a deafening publicity and policy silence in between.

MPs and shadow ministers openly grumble that Miliband put the kibosh on their individual plans to make headlines in the summer.

It all adds up to a lot of pressure on the Labour leader as the conference opens in the south-coast resort where his predecessor Neil Kinnock famously fell in the sea.

The Tories are keen to characterise Miliband as Kinnock 2.0 but so far Ed has avoided any impromptu dips and this autumn he’s successfully dragged the debate on to his chosen battleground.

He said: “The focus of our conference will be on the cost of living, the biggest issue facing Britain’s families. Who is going to recognise the living standards crisis they are facing? Who is going to do something about it?

“Labour is going to be setting out our plans for how we would tackle that living standards crisis, how we would change our economy.

“It’s a big contrast with the Tories who don’t get it and the SNP who aren’t focused on it.”

The shift to talking about living standards has come about because Labour’s previous attack line that the Tories were stifling economic recovery has been undone by a return to economic growth.

“Look, it’s good that we’ve seen some improvement in the economy,” said Miliband, “but while the Tories are saying the economy is healing the reality is that for most families life is getting worse.

“The Tories’ whole economic strategy is based on the idea that the way Britain competes is on the basis of low wages, worse conditions. We’ve got an alternative strategy for how we make Britain succeed and it starts with standing up to some of the big interests in our society like the energy companies we’re going to call time on unfair rip-off practices.”

Expect a big announcement on energy bills this week then.

Miliband will need a raft of eye-catching ideas in this crucial week to keep talk in the bars and on the fringe from party dissent and speculation about his leadership.