Why should Miliband pay any attention to Tony Blair?

Tony Blair is “the most electorally successful politician in Labour history,” according to the Daily Telegraph’s political correspondent Peter Dominiczak, a view echoed by The Observer columnist Andrew Rawnsley: “He was Labour’s most electorally successful leader and by a long way.”

Which explains why the former prime minister makes the headlines when he airs his thoughts on election strategy and appears to tell The Economist magazine that David Cameron will remain Prime Minister in May because Ed Miliband has led Labour too far to the left.

That interpretation was quickly denied by Blair’s office, but Rawnsley comments: “I am not sure what alternative conclusion he [Blair] thinks we should draw from his words, especially when he also said: ‘I am convinced the Labour party succeeds best when it is in the centre ground’.”

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Rawnsley makes a powerful case for Blair’s achievements. “He presided over the most sustained economic growth in British history and at a time when other major economies tipped into recession. That was accompanied by stealthy but significant redistribution towards the less well-off while record sums were poured into public services… The current squeeze on public services would have been felt that much harder had the Blair governments not invested heavily in improving the social fabric.”

The alternative view is offered by Neal Lawson of the left-leaning pressure group Compass.

In an open letter published by The Guardian, he tells Blair: “Had you not been so disdainful about anything remotely Old Labour there would probably be much less support for Ukip now. True, you sneaked in some transfers to the poor in the shape of tax credits, and you introduced the minimum wage. But never with a political flourish, never with a sense of moral purpose.”

You pays your money and you takes your choice. For the poll-watcher, the key issue is not Blair’s political legacy but how good a guide he is to what will happen next May.

It’s worth recalling that Blair’s own electoral record is more chequered than his three general election victories would suggest.

First of all, Lawson is right to claim that John Smith, Labour leader between July 1992 and his death in May 1994, would have won in 1997. “By then the nation was heartily sick of the Tories. It was time for change.” It’s also worth recalling that Neil Kinnock did the heavy lifting in terms of restoring Labour support after the debacle of 1983. By 1992 he had added three million voters to Labour’s tally.

That was the foundation for the stunning 1997 landslide. Under Blair, Labour polled 13.5 million votes - nearly four million more than the Tories. A 43 per cent share of the vote was rewarded with 418 seats. The Tories got under 31 per cent and only 165 seats.

Yet from there it was downhill all the way for Blair. He saw around four million Labour voters desert the party between 1997 and 2005. Another million were lost by 2010. Ed Miliband’s inheritance from Blair and Gordon Brown was a vote share under 30 per cent.

For Miliband perhaps the most relevant election was Blair’s messy 2005 victory, when opposition to the Iraq war was gnawing at Labour support. Blair’s personal rating, which once topped 75 per cent approval, had dipped below 30 per cent amid allegations of cash for honours.

Nonetheless Blair achieved a comfortable Commons majority, but with a vote share of 35 per cent - the lowest of any majority government in British history. (Then, as now, the electoral system worked savagely against the Conservatives. Under Michael Howard, the Tories won 32 per cent of the vote but were rewarded with 157 fewer seats than Labour.)

Those 2005 vote shares are strikingly similar to the December 2014 polling averages used in the latest projection by Electoral Calculus. Labour are on 34 per cent, to the Tories’ 31 per cent. Based on this projection, Labour will win 80 more seats than the Conservatives.

But while the three-point margin was enough to give Blair a Commons majority in 2005, Miliband is projected to fall just short of a majority on these figures - and that’s because of the surge in support for the Scottish Nationalists. Current polling in Scotland – which is reflected in the Electoral Calculus projection - suggests the SNP could take as many as 45 of Labour’s 59 Scottish seats.

Scotland may be Miliband’s big headache, but the SNP advance is a threat to Cameron, too – in that his coalition partners, the Lib Dems, could lose most of their 11 Scottish seats, making it impossible for Nick Clegg to renew his deal with the Tories. The current coalition would be dead.

If Miliband can squeeze a victory on 7 May, will it finally put an end to Tony Blair’s “interventions” from the sidelines?

Political Betting’s Labour-supporting columnist Henry Manson says a Miliband victory would end the idea Blair is “the guardian of some secret code to a Labour election victory… and could lead to a more critical reassessment of Blair’s tenure and squandering of political capital from two giant parliamentary majorities.”

Manson suggests “it is entirely rational for Tony Blair to want Ed Miliband to lose.” His intervention is a sign of his “weakness not his strength. If Ed wins in May it won’t just be David Cameron who is defeated, but Tony Blair’s reputation will suffer as Labour shows there is another way to win.”