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Party leader promises to end ‘fast buck’ capitalism, presenting himself as the man willing to ‘break the consensus’ Ed Miliband has promised to rip up decades of irresponsible “fast buck” capitalism in the most radical analysis of Britain’s plight offered by any Labour leader since 1945. In a high-risk speech to the Labour conference in Liverpool, Miliband presented himself as the man “willing to break the consensus rather than succumb to it”. He promised a tough fight to recast a new capitalism built around British values that reward the hard-working grafters and producers in business, and not the asset-stripping “predators”. Miliband’s aides insisted the speech did not represent a lurch to the left, as immediately claimed by the Conservatives, but instead a decisive break from “a something for nothing” system that grew up under Thatcherism and that New Labour had been unable to correct. “Britain’s problems stemmed from the way we have chosen to run our country, not just for a year or so, but for decades,” Miliband said. New Labour “had brought good times, but this did not mean we had a good economic system. We changed the fabric of our country, but we did not do enough to change the values of our country.” Accusing David Cameron of being the last gasp of an old system, he said the country was crying out for a society in which the hard-working grafters are rewarded and the closed circles at the top of society are broken up. He promised to regulate and tax companies according to whether firms invested for the long term, rather than for the fast buck, recruiting apprentices and not simply stripping assets. Miliband’s pedestrian, drooping delivery did no justice to the ambition of his argument, leaving the packed conference hall sometimes flat. He was not helped when the TV live feed went down for at least 20 minutes. He was also startled when part of the audience cheered when he told them he was not Tony Blair, a reaction that left some former cabinet members despairing. Overall, the halting delivery will do little to convince those who question his prime ministerial qualities. But his aides said the speech had proved he was his own man, and no one could not now underestimate the radicalism of his diagnosis. “We have thrown the dice and now we will find out whether the voters agree,” said one. Some Blairites were privately alarmed by what they regarded as an anti-business tone. This was denied by Miliband’s circle, who are convinced the successive crises have created a once-in-a-generation mood for change in the country. Miliband – not Cameron – would be seen as the man to tear up the old rules that no longer work for the hard-working majority. There was a smattering of newly sketched policies: support for employees on company remunerations boards, government contracts only given to firms that hire apprentices, a break-up of energy companies and a commitment to allocate social housing according to behaviour, not just need. But he offered little on how he would regulate to reward what he described as good companies such as Rolls Royce, as opposed to the predators such as the private care home chain Southern Cross. But most of all he drew together the disparate British crises in banking, media, parliament and in the inner cities to make a broader argument that a quiet crisis was gripping the country. He said: “We have allowed values which say take what you can, I’m in it for myself, to create a Britain that is too unequal. The people at the top taking unjustified rewards is not just bad for the economy. It sends out a message throughout society about what values are OK. And inequality reinforces privilege and opportunity for the few.” He also tried to present himself to a sceptical country as someone with leadership qualities and a valuable, personal backstory. He said he had the heritage of the outsider and the vantage point of the insider, making him the “guy who is determined to break the closed circles of Britain”. Referring to the highlight of his year-old leadership – his decision to attack Rupert Murdoch over phone hacking – he said the episode had taught him to be true to himself and his values. “The lesson I have learnt most closely in the past year is that you have got to be willing to break the consensus, not succumb to it,” he said. “I am my own man,” he asserted to wide applause. Miliband has repeatedly refused to define himself against his own party, but passages of his speech did challenge traditional Labour on the deficit, welfare and aspects of the Thatcher settlement. In a passage at the start of the speech, he admitted the party had lost the electorate’s trust on the economy and said many of the cuts will not be reversed. If the deficit was not eliminated in this parliament, a Labour government would finish the task, he said. He was “determined to prove the next Labour government will only spend what it can afford”. But as part of the new bargain that requires responsibility at the top and at the bottom, he also said welfare cheats would have to be tackled. He went on to draw strong applause when he questioned why the prime minister was so eager to cut the 50p tax rate for people earning over £3,000 a week. Only David Cameron, he said, “could believe you make ordinary families work harder by making them poorer and you make the rich harder by making them richer”. But Miliband said nothing about the coming strikes on pensions or the future of the union party link. Lady Warsi, the Conservative party co-chairman, dismissed the speech: “What we heard was a weak leader telling his party what it wanted to hear. He’s moved Labour away from the centre ground and come up with no solutions to the something-for-nothing culture that he helped Labour create. “All he promised was more of the same spending, borrowing and debt that got us into this mess in the first place.” Ed Miliband Labour conference 2011 Labour conference Labour Economic policy Patrick Wintour guardian.co.uk