Patrick Wintour of the Guardian described Ed Miliband's leadership as an evolution from Stewart Wood's demands for a bodily ideological break from "New Labour" to Beales' apparently more pragmatic approach.
From an electoral perspective these viewpoints might arguably characterised as targeting frustrated Lib Dems in Wood's case and soft Conservatives in Beales'.
Beales was a member of the "quarterly look-ahead" group composed of Senior Miliband advisers who were tasked with the winning the 2015 general election for Labour.
In 2013 he was nicknamed Mr Freeze by the Financial Times and identified as "personality of the year" after being seen to be responsible for the Labour party's proposals to cap energy bills.
While every-one else is banging on about how to hang on to former Lib Dems, Greg’s popping up and saying, “Fine, but remember that if we want to win, there’s a few blue-collar, small-c conservatives we’re going to need to pull across as well.”’[2] Geoffrey Robinson, Labour MP for Coventry North West was rumoured to have told party activists he would step down in 2015 to allow Beales to contest his seat; an email seen by the Coventry Telegraph's Simon Gilbert appeared to show Beales and Robinson discussing introductions to prominent members of the local labour party.