Labour leader hopes Australian political strategist Bruce Hawker will help him understand David Cameron's adviser
Ed Miliband has been consulting the most longstanding political Australian adversary of Lynton Crosby to understand the techniques and weaknesses of David Cameron's strategist.
The Labour leader held private talks in April with Bruce Hawker, another Australian elections adviser, and they have remained in contact subsequently. Hawker has also met other senior Labour figures, attending a two-day conference in Copenhagen on the centre left.
Hawker is now working with Kevin Rudd, the Australian prime minister, on his election campaign. Matthew McGregor, a senior Labour strategist, is also in Australia for the Rudd campaign.
Hawker and Crosby have been longstanding rivals in Australia and according to one insider "are able to guess what the other guy is going to think before he thinks it".
Crosby has been working for Cameron for a year and is credited with sharpening the Tory message as well as finding wedge issues that can divide parties from their natural supporters.
He has been under fire for the way in which he combines his role as a strategy adviser to the Conservative party with his continuing role as a lobbyist on behalf of commercial and other interests such as the Syrian opposition and tobacco companies. Hawker, like Crosby, also has a range of commercial and public sector clients.
Labour denied that it had ever offered Hawker a formal job. However, sources said it had not been ruled out in the future.
Hawker has argued that Cameron's decision to offer a referendum on Europe has parallels with the way in which Australia's then Liberal party leader, John Howard, under Crosby's influence, used emotionally charged immigration issues to set himself up as a heretic opposing "political correctness".
He has referred specifically to Howard's response to the anti-immigrant campaigner Pauline Hanson in 2001, when he used the presence of a Norwegian freighter carrying 438 rescued refugees full of refugees to co-opt Hanson's supporters.
Hawker believes wedge politics is on the rise in the UK largely due to Crosby. In a blogpost, Hawker wrote: "Cameron now lacks authenticity – his early centrist rhetoric bears no resemblance to the austerity drive he has mounted. Britain today is divided and angry. When the electorate senses this lack of authenticity in a leader, it's very hard to recover."
On Europe, he added: "The challenge for Labour is to maintain a united position on the issue while not appearing to be knee-jerk, uncritical supporters of the present EU arrangements. The worst thing they can do is appear to equivocate on the issue."
He said that was one of the Australian Labor party's biggest problems in the 2001 campaign. When Labor's leader, Kim Beazley, made contradictory comments on the immigration issue he was lampooned by the Liberals as "flip-flopping". Reported by guardian.co.uk 4 hours ago.
Ed Miliband has been consulting the most longstanding political Australian adversary of Lynton Crosby to understand the techniques and weaknesses of David Cameron's strategist.
The Labour leader held private talks in April with Bruce Hawker, another Australian elections adviser, and they have remained in contact subsequently. Hawker has also met other senior Labour figures, attending a two-day conference in Copenhagen on the centre left.
Hawker is now working with Kevin Rudd, the Australian prime minister, on his election campaign. Matthew McGregor, a senior Labour strategist, is also in Australia for the Rudd campaign.
Hawker and Crosby have been longstanding rivals in Australia and according to one insider "are able to guess what the other guy is going to think before he thinks it".
Crosby has been working for Cameron for a year and is credited with sharpening the Tory message as well as finding wedge issues that can divide parties from their natural supporters.
He has been under fire for the way in which he combines his role as a strategy adviser to the Conservative party with his continuing role as a lobbyist on behalf of commercial and other interests such as the Syrian opposition and tobacco companies. Hawker, like Crosby, also has a range of commercial and public sector clients.
Labour denied that it had ever offered Hawker a formal job. However, sources said it had not been ruled out in the future.
Hawker has argued that Cameron's decision to offer a referendum on Europe has parallels with the way in which Australia's then Liberal party leader, John Howard, under Crosby's influence, used emotionally charged immigration issues to set himself up as a heretic opposing "political correctness".
He has referred specifically to Howard's response to the anti-immigrant campaigner Pauline Hanson in 2001, when he used the presence of a Norwegian freighter carrying 438 rescued refugees full of refugees to co-opt Hanson's supporters.
Hawker believes wedge politics is on the rise in the UK largely due to Crosby. In a blogpost, Hawker wrote: "Cameron now lacks authenticity – his early centrist rhetoric bears no resemblance to the austerity drive he has mounted. Britain today is divided and angry. When the electorate senses this lack of authenticity in a leader, it's very hard to recover."
On Europe, he added: "The challenge for Labour is to maintain a united position on the issue while not appearing to be knee-jerk, uncritical supporters of the present EU arrangements. The worst thing they can do is appear to equivocate on the issue."
He said that was one of the Australian Labor party's biggest problems in the 2001 campaign. When Labor's leader, Kim Beazley, made contradictory comments on the immigration issue he was lampooned by the Liberals as "flip-flopping". Reported by guardian.co.uk 4 hours ago.