BBC Exclusive: Axelrod to assist Milliband in 2015

[Harry Hayfield]

Barack Obama's most influential adviser during two presidential victories has been hired to advise Labour on its 2015 election campaign, ensuring that Ed Miliband will put inequality and the break between family finances and economic growth at the centre of his election campaign.

David Axelrod has been given the title of senior strategic adviser and the American told the Guardian that Labour's political and economic analysis was similar to the central themes deployed in Obama's successful re-election campaign.

The political guru said that he had signed up "because I have had some long conversations with Ed Miliband over the course of the past year and it was less about politics, and more about this issue of how in the 21st century you create healthy economies in which opportunity is broadly available, and people can stay ahead of the cost of living".

His arrival on the British scene will pit him against the Australian Lynton Crosby, the Conservative campaign consultant, who is one the toughest campaign operators. But he will not be as hands-on as his rival: he will first visit the UK in May, and Labour's overall campaign structure, the subject of recent leaks and rivalries, remains unchanged.

It also, more intriguingly, pits him against a former Obama colleague, Jim Messina, who has been hired by David Cameron. Axelrod was reluctant to discuss Messina, except to promise he had the capacity to surprise.

The deal was finalised last week by Douglas Alexander, the Labour election co-ordinator, and involved what is being described as a six-figure sum to pay for the services of Axelrod and the firm, AKPD, until the general election in May next year.

Axelrod was integral not just to Obama's two presidential victories in 2008 and 2012, but also to Obama's election as a senator in 2004. He has been described as a lobe of the Obama brain.

He comes at a time when Labour still holds a consistent poll lead, but there is an expectation that the lead will narrow as the economy improves and wages start to rise faster than prices, the point of crossover that the Conservatives will argue means the living standards crisis is over.

I would very much like to know what our American friends make of this