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mcgillianaireUninspiring. Let me stick my neck out on the line. Labour (cough: the unions) have made a mistake in electing the wrong Miliband brother as their leader. Worse still, it seems more likely than not that David will officially end his mainstream political career tomorrow. He has yet to fill in his nomination papers for the shadow cabinet and has already come down to London from Manchester. The Labour frontbench will suffer from his loss greatly. But today was about Ed. He praised the positive achievements of New Labour, Blair and Brown for challenging conventional wisdoms and his brother's graciousness in defeat. But he also tore into New Labour's attack on civil liberties, said the Iraq War was wrong and admitted a Labour government would also have imposed tough public sector cuts halving the deficit within four years. And in a bid to distance himself from the right-wing media imposed "Red Ed" tag, he took a swipe at irresponsible strike action. But he also played to the gallery by promising a bigger levy on bankers' bonuses and denouncing a system in which a banker earns more in a day than a caretaker does in a year. He called Cameron a pessimist while cleverly reworking the Tory's own description of Blair by calling him an optimist once.
It was not the greatest of speeches but there is scope for improvement. He is somewhat between Gordon Brown and Tony Blair in front of the camera; not wholly uncomfortable nor quite yet a natural. As one commentator put it, his speech seemed choppy and felt like it had been put together with a cut-and-paste method. It also seemed like he added words at the end of sentences to grab applause. An orator he is not but at least in comparison with his brother he comes in with a clean slate. Or does he? He talked about Labour grabbing back the mantle of leading on civil liberties. In particular he referred to Labour's disastrous attempt to extend the detention of terrorist suspects without charge from 28 days to 90 days in the wake of 7/7. But guess what? He voted in favour of it. He also decided to come off the fence by describing the Iraq War as wrong. Fair enough you might think. Finally a senior Labour politician admitting fault. But hang on a second. Just a few months ago (in May) he made it clear in an interview with the Guardian that while the weapons inspectors should've been given more time, "what I am not saying is that the war was undertaken for the wrong motives". Well, which is it? You can't have it both ways!
So he might not be Red Ed but perhaps Flip-Flopper Ed? Almost everybody in the Party seems to be in agreement with his speech. The only prominent voice of discontent was that of every Londoner's favourite Bob Crow, the head of the Railway and Maritime Transport Union:
It was not the greatest of speeches but there is scope for improvement. He is somewhat between Gordon Brown and Tony Blair in front of the camera; not wholly uncomfortable nor quite yet a natural. As one commentator put it, his speech seemed choppy and felt like it had been put together with a cut-and-paste method. It also seemed like he added words at the end of sentences to grab applause. An orator he is not but at least in comparison with his brother he comes in with a clean slate. Or does he? He talked about Labour grabbing back the mantle of leading on civil liberties. In particular he referred to Labour's disastrous attempt to extend the detention of terrorist suspects without charge from 28 days to 90 days in the wake of 7/7. But guess what? He voted in favour of it. He also decided to come off the fence by describing the Iraq War as wrong. Fair enough you might think. Finally a senior Labour politician admitting fault. But hang on a second. Just a few months ago (in May) he made it clear in an interview with the Guardian that while the weapons inspectors should've been given more time, "what I am not saying is that the war was undertaken for the wrong motives". Well, which is it? You can't have it both ways!
So he might not be Red Ed but perhaps Flip-Flopper Ed? Almost everybody in the Party seems to be in agreement with his speech. The only prominent voice of discontent was that of every Londoner's favourite Bob Crow, the head of the Railway and Maritime Transport Union:
- "Ed Miliband has to decide whose side he is on – the working class on the streets and on the picket lines or the Condems and their corporate supporters. All the signs are that he is already caving in to pressure from the rightwing press and as a consequence he will alienate millions of voters who are right at the sharp end of the cuts programme."
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