Skating over the real issues

So recent days have seen a succession of well-heeled politicians and journalists spit feathers about Miliband's evocation of his Jewish refugee parents, birth in an NHS hospital and education in a state comprehensive, as though this was a declaration of class war.

Perhaps they thought that, in the absence of Miliband declaring his own origins, people might not have noticed that current conservative coalition members are overwhelmingly the product of inherited wealth and private education.

However, the Labour leader soon let it be known that class war was the last thing on his mind.

Whereas his late father Ralph might have welcomed the Red Ed sobriquet, Miliband stressed that such an assessment was erroneous.

Instead, he delivered a "one nation" oration, which, in positive terms, offered social solidarity, especially for the poorest and most vulnerable, but which skated over essential class divisions.

Class war is not a figment of political activists' imagination. It is waged day and night, at the workplace, in the media and in decisions over what policies government should prioritise.

Miliband identified some of the major complaints made by working people - on oil and petrol prices, the ever-rising cost of gas and electricity and private rail companies' profiteering.

But while he railed against "cosy cartels and powerful interests," he gave no sign that Labour plans to return all or any of these assets to public democratic ownership.

Even when he spoke of sorting out the banks, this did not include public ownership, either across the piece or selectively.

They were simply told to divide their high street arms from casino banking operations.

Economic ownership is important. Regulation, upon which the Tories and new Labour have relied to defend the public interest in the conduct of once publicly owned industries handed over to the private sector, has proved an utter failure.

Not only will privatisation continue under Labour but so will private-sector penetration of our public services, with willingness to provide apprenticeships the only proviso demanded of private companies.

Miliband's "one nation" rhetoric was deployed as the justification for making "difficult decisions," including an incoming Labour administration accepting a later retirement age, refusal to reverse coalition government cuts, rigid adherence to a public-sector pay freeze and a "tough settlement" for public services.

Whatever patriotic, solidarity, one nation, we're all in it together spin is put on this package, it amounts to acceptance of the essence of the bankers' austerity agenda.

The Labour leader asserted that it was impossible to go back to the days of old Labour, which he suggested meant putting public before private, whereas new Labour's biggest crime was apparently to appear "too timid" before those with power.

Timidity in the presence of Rupert Murdoch and George W Bush might have been part of it, but a series of overseas wars, mass privatisation, deregulation and anti-union legislation was a little more substantial.

Even the growing gap between rich and poor, which Miliband mentioned, took root under Tony Blair and Gordon Blair when new Labour was in full pro-City mode.

Miliband's final section of his speech suggested that some people might find his speech "too radical." Would that that was indeed the case.