“I’m nobody’s man, I’m my own man and I’m very very clear about that,”
declares the new Labour Leader. Well, that's not quite the case, is it? Ed Miliband is Gordon Brown's protege. Think what that means: no-one who didn't jump as high as Brown said 'jump' remained in post, and Miliband remained in post, he advanced, under Brown. He was parachuted into a safe Labour seat in the North of England - what on Earth has Miliband to do with the constituency he was handed?
Deeply involved in the setting up of the New Labour Project from when he was very young, he has declared also that New Labour is dead. Well, that's not quite the case either, is it? This phase of the Project is over, the shifting of the dinosaur aspects of Labour towards the centre ground. The next phase is shifting the centre ground itself to the left. That is what he will be party to.
And he wants to shed 'some of the baggage' of recent years: there's the war-mongering and its dead to shed; the lifting of all and any regulation on the banks to shed (and Miliband was an economic advisor); the startling growth in inequality within the United Kingdom during the first governing phase of the Project to finesse. And all the assaults upon our civil rights and democratic practices to be denied, now that they are being unravelled by the Government. Baggage!
Democratic practices are going to be tricky to assert, or even reassert for a man elected to the Leadership of his party by such a doubtfully democratic process as the Labour party's rules. His predecessor, of course, didn't bother with those processes at all; but Miliband's party electoral weighting and process is such a despicable fix it's barely acceptable to any modern political party, and not at all acceptable to a democratic party. It no more confers any claim to be prime minister of the UK on him than it did on those Labour Leaders who have gone before him and achieved general election victories. Except for Blair. Only Blair, reviled by Miliband, rose above his Party to truly claim a democratic mandate.
Miliband's reputation for being indecisive is probably a reflection of being his master's voice or, at least, creature; difficult to be decisive when every decision, no matter how small or from whatever department, was disappearing into the black (or should that be Brown?) maw. Not nice, though, either to assert that standing against your brother is a sign of decisiveness; I'd choose a word more like disloyalty (or one of the freudian terms were I inclined to interpret the world in that kind of context.) And getting a kiss from Lord Kinnock is something disgraceful in any kind of context (unless you're Glenys I suppose).
We know what he stands for because it was the manifesto that he wrote on which Labour lost the last election (with a little help from his friends). And if he has repudiated that as well, now, it's beginning to look as if he will say anything at any time to anyone to obtain office, first in a democratically discredited party, as a stepping stone to bossing-about us all - and we all had quite enough of that kind of behaviour.
The trouble with Ed Miliband is that he is tainted with the very worst of Labour's thirteen years, and the fact that so were all the other candidates doesn't make him any more attractive. There is nothing he could say or do that would make me ever believe him.
Or his party until it apologises sincerely for spoiling, indeed taking, the lives of so many millions of people, and demonstrates its remorse and penitence by the putting in place of fully democratic party systems. Then it can pretend to choosing a potential prime minister.
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2 comments:
Think of his brother.
David Miliband was given an opportunity to push Brown out of office. It was his article that led to the original 'coup' of 2008.
He then failed to follow up with anything stronger than a mild suggestion about changing tactics in his conference speech.
In 2009 his friend led a coup that would have ended the Brown premiership if Dave M. had joined it. He would have been made leader, awaiting the outcome of a general election.
But that was the moment Dave M. really wobbled. He failed to act and really that is the moment he lost the leadership.
The now annual coup of 2010 was ridiculous, but even then Dave M. failed to act either decisively or indecisively. He just..disappeared for a bit, then came back when it was over. Maybe he thought that it worked for John Major.
Then he allowed his votes to go towards the nomination of Dianne Abbott. Probably that didn't make much difference, but who knows where her votes would have gone. To Ed Balls? And if he had been polling better then perhaps not quite so many union votes would have gone to Ed Miliband.
Well, can't be helped.
He has a lifetime to reflect.
Now he will probably never be leader. Undone by his own brother.
There's a big realignment going on in UK politics, Mr Q, as you would know better than me.
It is obscured by Liberal Democrats holding office with the Conservatives, so that tones it down a bit; but Conservatives and real Liberals (by real Liberals I mean those who, in the class war, will be found on the side of the educated bourgeoisie) form a natural alliance that draws on the default political stance of the country.
The 'Democrat' part of the Liberal Democrats is really social democrat (in the European sense of such a party) and belongs with the social democratic Labour party members now trapped in a coalition with the Left.
Being in power will hold the Coalition together - and Cameron could probably get along as a minority government anyway - but the Liberal Democrats and the Labour party are going to have to sort themselves out.
The first split will be a Labour party split (nothing to hold them together) and, at the very least, a remarkably weak Opposition.
David M. needs to go to the back benches and gather his forces. After all, he owes nothing to his brother; the question is: Does anyone in the Labour party feel they owe anything to him any more? I suspect they do, despite his not striking down Brown. He knew Brown was going anyway, perhaps he puts a higher value on loyalty than his brother does. And I rather admire him for letting some of his supporters divert to Abbott.
Anyway he certainly enjoys a far higher international esteem than Ed, which is why, presumably, Ed's master refused him the EU foreign affairs nomination and gave it to Ashton. He didn't turn it down, it wasn't on offer, despite what is stated in some newspaper articles. After all, he could always have come back to the UK to take the Party leadership when it became vacant - Mandelson dropped the EU Commission between Friday and Monday.
If Ed tries to shift the centre leftwards we are all ready to contest him.
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