On Monday the Mirror’s James Lyons published Ed Miliband’s answer to this question, alongside the answers of the other Labour leadership contenders. “Rachel Weisz, Bobby Kennedy, Alex Higgins and my brother”, said Ed.

Labour Uncut reacted to the Alex Higgins selection: “Alex Higgins. Alex Higgins? That’s more like it. Suprising. Quirky. Great shout. This is what we want, something leftfield. The kind of answer that makes you kick yourself in the pub, wishing they were on your short list.”

My reaction was to note that this was the second time, to my knowledge, that Ed had offered Alex Higgins as an answer to an interview question. He recently told the Spectator that Higgins is one of his heroes, along with Geoff Boycott and Jimmy Connors. He explained these choices by saying he was attracted to ”the charisma of imperfection”.

Perhaps, flawed genius is the only real kind of genius. Certainly, that is what Alex Higgins was. Labour Party members are increasingly concluding that Ed is a political genius. He recently drew the largest crowd to a Labour Party meeting in Carlisle since the days of Harold Wilson, so they may very well be right. The excitement at this Carlisle event, while more sedate and less alcoholic, may just have rivalled that at the Jampot Billiard Hall, Belfast, in Higgins’ early days.

“The government’s tone of voice is one that suggests all public spending is wasteful, and all those working in central or local government are on the make or take. Perhaps, given his goal of a smaller state, this is Mr Cameron’s intention. If so, it is neither sensible nor politically astute. It also happens to be unfair.”

How long before this unfairness jars with the public?

I have a childhood memory (perhaps, I mean nightmare) of a member of the public describing themselves as a civil servant on Noel’s House Party and Noel doing nothing to discourage the booing which came from the audience as a result. I didn’t even know what a civil servant was at the time but this booing didn’t seem fair to me. Of course, this may all be false memory. There is no doubt, however, that this government wants to bring public servant bashing back into vogue.

That Tony Blair’s autobiography has been published on the same day as ballot papers have been sent to party members in this contest is an unwelcome echo of this era. While his actions as PM, particularly on economic policy, have had a distinctly Thatcherite flavour, David Cameron was the first Tory leader to fully emerge from Margaret Thatcher’s shadow. He was also the first of these leaders, since John Major in 1992, to win a General Election. There is a lesson in this for Labour. And Blair’s seeming desire to play back-seat driver isn’t helpful in assisting Labour avoid the electoral fate of the Tories post-Thatcher.  

While Labour needs to move on from the Blair/Brown era, this shouldn’t mean a lurch to the left. Blair is, actually, sensible in imploring from the back-seat that any such lurches be avoided. The trouble is that it is the driver who the electorate needs to hear and their voice is drowned out by any noise coming from the back-seat. The driver also needs to hear himself think and to think afresh. Such thinking is unlikely to be assisted by the noise coming from the back-seat. The back-seat driver is right to avoid lurches to the left but the very meaning of left and right are much in flux and it is far from clear that the back-seat is truly able to think whatever unthinkables need to be thought in this context. 1994, after all, is not 2010.

“Remember, Brown and Balls got it right when the financial crisis hit; this puts Balls in the best position of all the candidates to point out that the Tories got it wrong. And it is economics that government will be all about for the foreseeable future, for the solution to the deficit problem will determine the scope of the welfare state.”

Certainly, this economic credibility makes Balls an asset to our party and tomorrow morning he will turn his economic fire on David Cameron and George Osborne. While his speech tomorrow will rightly stress the importance of having a strategy for growth, this can’t be at the expense of Labour credibility on the deficit. Part of this credibility is itself about having a growth strategy, as the deficit will be far more manageable in a growing economy. It is also, however, about tough choices on taxes and spending, which, as Pat McFadden has sensibly argued, crafts a Labour response to the deficit that is about neither Thatcherism nor denial.

At the Open Left event, Balls lamented the failure of Gordon Brown to more straight-forwardly make the case for the socially just Britain that they both believe in. “In a 24-7 media age”, Balls said, “you can only win by being straight, open and authentic”. This is as true about the tough choices that we now face on economic policy as it was about Brown’s political philosophy and motivations.

Oddly enough, this reminded me of some advice that Bruno offered to Brown at the London premiere of Sasha Baron Cohen film. “Admit who you really are”.

Jon Cruddas addresses these issues in his New Statesman interview:

“I think it’s a mistake to attack the Liberals. We should have a much more subtle approach to this, because what we’re seeing is the first major political realignment following the economic crisis. The question is: what is the equivalent centre-left response to this moment of rupture? Attacking the Liberals is wrong. There’s a danger of us spraying too much lead across the forecourt and not really thinking about how we need to regroup. We need to have respect for and show courtesy towards different traditions as part of an overall, plural realignment across the centre and the left – that’s what’s going to be needed. Arguably, the era of majoritarian [sic] victories by single parties is at an end.”

The Conservatives are, however, a different beast. There should be no limit to how much lead we seek to fire across their forecourt. We should be unrelenting in our opposition to them. While Jackie Ashley is right that Labour appears tone deaf when we are too blunt in our attacks upon the Liberal Democrats, the kind of passion which Ed Balls, in particular, has shown in opposing his opposite number, Michael “pipsqueak” Gove, is entirely justified. The more of this we can summon up the more likely it is that the threat which the Conservatives pose to the NHS, schools and all public services will get through to people.

“When race came to the fore in his presidential campaign, in the form of the Jeremiah Wright scandal, he responded brilliantly, with a fine unifying speech that challenged the country to be calm, sober and enlightened. The mosque debate was a moment for a speech of that kind.

“Whether or not he made the case for the project to go ahead – as, on balance, I think he should – he could have reminded the country of its common purposes, he could have sought to unify, he could have insisted on tolerance and understanding on both sides. That was the Barack Obama the country elected. Where did he go?”

This is surely a question to ponder as we reflect upon the essential features of the Cordoba Centre as Charlie Brooker described them in the Guardian yesterday:

“When I heard about it – in passing, in a soundbite – I figured it was a US example of the sort of inanely confrontational fantasy scheme Anjem Choudary might issue a press release about if he fancied winding up the tabloids for the 900th time this year. I was wrong. The “Ground Zero mosque” is a genuine proposal, but it’s slightly less provocative than its critics’ nickname makes it sound. For one thing, it’s not at Ground Zero. Also, it isn’t a mosque.

“Wait, it gets duller. It’s not being built by extremists either. Cordoba House, as it’s known, is a proposed Islamic cultural centre, which, in addition to a prayer room, will include a basketball court, restaurant, and swimming pool. Its aim is to improve inter-faith relations. It’ll probably also have comfy chairs and people who smile at you when you walk in, the monsters.”

In today’s global economy there can be little doubt that better skills are the key to higher earnings. But what is meant by better skills? Not qualifications per se but skills and attributes which can add to the productivity of an employer. Therefore, university is the passport to a better job if it can instil these things. It may be that this year’s low student satisfaction scores at the University of Cumbria indicate that students feel this is not the kind of experience which the university is giving them. However, we’d need to look at data on the earnings of University of Cumbria graduates to properly assess the extent to which the university has equipped them with skills valued by employers.     

Irrespective of their earnings, it appears that University of Cumbria students are graduating with debts £10,000 above the national average. With tuition fees now capped at £3,000 a year, it seems that the vast majority of debts owed by University of Cumbria graduates cannot be attributed to tuition fees. While much debate has focused of late upon whether a graduate tax would be a fairer means for students to contribute to the costs of their tuition, it seems clear that public policy needs to look again at student finance more broadly and in Cumbria, in particular, questions need to asked about why student debts are so much higher than the national average.

It is undoubtedly the case that such high debts will deter people from going to university, but, equally, better skills, which are really valued by employers, are the key to career advancement. It was because Labour wanted to open this door to career advancement to more people that universities were expanded under the last government, including the creation of the University of Cumbria. The need to finance this expansion was part of the reason why tuition fees were introduced in the first place.

Now we need a system of HE finance that incentivises universities to instil the skills and attributes that employers really value, so that university is genuinely a passport to a better job for every graduate who wants it to be. For Cumbria to reap the maximum benefit from having a university, the skills and attributes which it instils should be those valued by Cumbrian businesses. Cumbria’s university and economy should grow alongside one another.