Options
Pressure for Miliband to go!
If he loses the next election.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jun/20/ed-miliband-must-go-lose-election-labour-frontbencher
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jun/20/ed-miliband-must-go-lose-election-labour-frontbencher
0
Comments
I think the manoeuvering amongst the smoother operators has already begun.
Tristram Hunt is the archetypal Champagne Socialist who loves himself enough to be able to con the Party into placing him as leader making them believe that he's an electable man of the people (just as Tony Blair did in 1994). He would, however, be even worse than Blair because of his ego.
Talking of egos, Chuka Umunna makes no secret that he wants to take over. This is probably the biggest ego ever to have walked the earth. I believe he's been taking very opportunity to present himself as a future leader. Every TV appearance and interview is used by him as a PR exercise to prepare himself for a leadership contest. I believe he even has a team especially dedicate to his promotion.
Caroline Flint is a very formidable woman who I see as a good competitor. She has tenacity and rarely, if ever, stumbles over words. I don't know if she has ambitions, but given her performances in interviews and debates she ought to as she appeals to the grass roots of the Party.
Yvette Cooper is often talked about, but I can't see the appeal.
Douglas Alexander has no chance, however, that won't prevent him from having a go.
Unfortunately, I don't see the first two as being anything other than a worse form of Tony Blair increasing the shift rightwards towards the Primrose Hill and Hampstead set of middle class out of touch Labourites who really belong in the Tory Party.
I just wish there was a law which prevented politicians entering Parliament until the age of at least 35 and only allowing leaders to become PM after the age of 50. There are too many MPs who have entered politics in "short pants", to quote Paddy Ashdown in the 1990s.
What is the point of a second Tory Party?
Cameron is a much better performer than Miliband (let's face it, who isn't) so if there is to be little difference between the Labour Party and the others, what's the point of voting Labour?
If the Unions disassociate themselves from Labour as threatened, the Labour Party could be on its last legs.
Miliband is a muddler, and no one knows what he stands for, including him, it seems. The people who support him do so with no enthusiasm, and with an air of unavoidable embarrassment unintentionally damn him with faint praise.
He talked the talk to get the Unions on side, and then turned his back on them as soon as he’d got what he wanted.
Ed Miliband is a relic of New Labour that has floated to the top again, and the sooner he gets flushed out of the system the better.
Miliband as leader is a mistake, and the sooner the Labour Party sorts it out, the better it will be for their chances of winning the next election.
Will he be carried on the shoulders of his supporters to Conservative HQ with thousands of them demanding a Bank Holiday in his honour and a publically funded funeral?
Ed could be PM next year!
To be fair, whichever leader loses the next election is almost sure to go. It's very unusual for a leader to lose and then keep their job. Kinnock in 1987 is the only recent example I can think of.
If Labour wins the election next year it will despite Ed Miliband being leader, and only because the alternatives have become totally unacceptable to enough people.
This is the bigger element of the story imho. David has been out of politics and out of the country for a while now yet he is still polling strongly.. that's fascinating. If he can do so well when he isn't engaged in politics how well could he do if he actually came back and was leader?
I think it's inevitable Ed will go if Labour fail to win. He's just not strong enough to survive that. Then they'll have a leadership contest consisting of people such as Chuka Umunna, Tristram Hunt, perhaps Yvette Cooper.. maybe even Ed Balls.. although I think he's had his chance. And the big question is would David come back and run again. I suspect he would. I still think his decision to leave politics was an insurance policy to extract himself from any messy Ed downfall and give him a clean slate to return if/when Ed was removed as leader. Had he stuck around he would have become too much of a distraction for the media and for Labour. So he leaves to the USA for a few years and watches from afar. I think it was a good strategy.
As it stands at the moment, Farage doesn't have any policies to debate -- so I'm unsure where this 'carnage' will come from.
UKIP have a massive problem brewing up -- they've spent the last 3 or 4 years throwing their old, Right-wing manifesto to the wind and wooing "working-class" (god I hate that phrase) Labour voters, and have (wisely) kept their policies under wraps. This works in a EU election context.
Coming up with a whole new set of policies to interest both sets of UKIP supporters, and having to stand in front of the people for possibly five hours of scrutiny, is a whole different matter.
Carnage it may be, but possibly not in the way you envisage. The debates won't be carping about the EU and immigrants for the whole time, or anywhere near it.
Quite interesting that both Labour and the Tories have a popular figure, potential leader and supposed saviour of the party who isn't actually an MP in David Miliband and Boris Johnson.
Maybe it's just easier to be popular if you aren't an MP a it is easier to be your own person and you aren't associated with the rest of those lying bastards.
I'm with you, it seems like stating the obvious that whoever fails next year will need to step down or face a leadership contest which they'd probably lose.
interesting point made by Dan Hodges on the Livingston/Mellor show on LBC this morning - he reckons Yvette Cooper's chances would be weakened because Ed Balls is so closely associated with the present leader. There could be a deliberate attempt to put some distance between the two Eds between now and the election so Yvette has a better chance of becoming leader afterwards.
Their manifesto will be unveiled at their Autumn party conference in Milliband's constituency of Doncaster
The trouble is that the Labour leadership rules are horrendously complicated especially if there is a challenge to an existing leader. Even if Miliband could be persuaded to stand down it would take them months to elect a new leader and it would leave them with Harriet Harman as Acting Leader!
Life was so much easier when leaders just emerged from smoke filled rooms.
And me. Unfortunately, as long as we have a class system in this country the term is not an incorrect one.
Is that the best you can come up with in answer to my post?
She's done it before when Gordon resigned so no doubt will do again. She is a complete leech draining the life out of the party but there' s no way of getting rid of her is there (unless there's a challenge which is unlikely).
I do think they need new faces coming through - Stella Creasy and Rachel Reeves are ones that have impressed me.,
As for David Miliband, he's a complete Tony Blair clone and extremely insincere any time he speaks (unlike Ed who is more sincere and genuine but just ineffectual).. He's not the answer to the Labour party problems.
Do we really want Bernie Winters as our next Prime Minister?