Sky News is reporting that Labour backbenchers Bob Marshall-Andrews and Geraldine Smith have called on Gordon Brown to sack David Miliband for being duplicitous. You've got to laugh. If Chief Whip Geoff Hoon doesn't restore order soon, the consequences for the Labour Party will be catastrophic. I couldn't believe what I was reading in the papers his morning. What on earth did Brown allies think they would achieve by slagging off Miliband in the way they did?
They should remember the disloyalty and disintegration of the Major government. Those who learn nothing from history and destined to repeat it ... or at least so someone once said.
46 comments:
Why did Brown allies slag off Miliband?
Because Milband has morphed into Blair. The Party doesn't want Blair or his clone.
You can reads how Milibland became Milibrand here:
http://theorangepartyblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/has-miliband-morphed-into-blair.html
Gordon himself is, of course, completely innocent of ever having committed any acts of disloyalty to a serving Prime Minister.
Like everyone else I'm just sitting back with a big bucket of popcorn and enjoying the spectacle!
"Sky News is reporting that Labour backbenchers Bob Marshall-Andrews and Geraldine Smith have called on Gordon Brown to sack David Miliband for being duplicitous."
So he should. Your hero Thatcher would.
As I remember BM-A is no fan of the Cabinet and votes against at every opportunity. There's a bit of a chance that he's mischief making, is there not?
You what? a politician calling another "Duplicitious", where on earth as this person been, in a sheltered environment?
The whole art of politics is duplicity, double dealing, lying, theiving and being incredibly bossy towards others.
It should be laughable, but reflects the disconnect with reality.
Bob Marshall- Andrews is retiring at the next election. He loves the limelight. I could not believe Geraldine Smith's interview - she mentioned Nick Brown in the same breath as David Miliband and I was left with the feeling that Nick Brown should be promoted to the cabinet. The pair are not in touch with reality and have done more harm than good by their intervention.
It is hilarious after the years that GB and his followers plotted and schemed to get the top job. He was certainly complicit in the coup to remove Tony Blair. Now his supporters are calling for dismissal because of an article trying to stir up belief in the future for demoralised labour party supporters - and I am one! Neither of these two speak for me - both embarrass me.
If Chief Whip Geoff Hoon doesn't restore order soon...
Now you are taking the piss, Iain.
For a Tory to cricise Labour over leadership contests is a bit rich.
Remember all of those Tories giving IDS their total support.
'The quiet man is here to stay, and he's turning up the volu....aaaah'
I`m with Patrick on this.....pass the popcorn please.......
Yes, but Iain - isn't the 'lesson of [recent] history' here that when a scenario arises where a leadership challenge of the type hinted at by Ming Campbell when Chatshow Charlie is not stamped upon from a great height, very very quickly, authority drains from the leader ??
Surely the threat of expulsion to the Siberian Gulag is required to ensure that the people stay 'on-message' - Alistair Campbell would never have stood for this, and whilst I deplore his tactics, he did at least help keep the party in power for a decade.
Brown shouldn't tolerate Miliband's behaviour. Miliband should be given a choice: shut up, publicly rule yourself out of a leadership challenge, and stay in the cabinet - or resign to mount one. Either way, Brown wins - he looks tough, leads his party, and I doubt whether even in the current climate Miliband would actually mount a successful challenge - or indeed, would want to, as it's a pretty poisoned chalice. Once again, by failing to act, Brown has shot himself in the foot.
Sacking Miliband would probably also initiate the resignations of Ed Miliband and Douglas Alexander to name but 2 plus several junior ministers causing the government to implode(ex-Blairite Ministers will also be queing up to put the knife in) and gives a focal point for the replace Brown Campaign and an almost definite leadership contest end of September after various acrimonious Conference speeches. So either way Brown's finished. He leaves Miliband in situ and is accused of weakness and Miliband will be poised to strike if he feels he can get away with it or he sacks Miliband and unleashes Civil War. Nice !
Wait for the September Surprise. It can be no coincidence that British Gas announce record profit and a 35% hike in prices this week - with little or no complaint from Labour.
They're clearly planning to windfall tax BG and distribute the money to "hardworking families"
Another stealth tax on the middle class.
Is there any chance we could get Harriet and Miliband into a paddle pool full of oil and let them wrestle it out?
My money would be on Harriet.
Of course Labour have learned nothing.
But hey, this is pantomime with Punch and Judy at the seaside and a right farce left behind at Westminster.
Since Labour could not organise a .... in a brewery, it will run and run and run with no outcome except another drop in their poll ratings.
Don't say a word.. You'll spoil our fun..
The Muppets were amateurs compared to this lot..
Jane said...
"The pair are not in touch with reality."
Says the girl who can't recognise a dagger when Millpede is thrusting it into Brown's back.
Ha ha ha.
If you don't want to be demoralised stop being in the Labour Party - all the best people did years ago. Have you read the comments at CiF? 'Embarrassment' is far too small a punishment for what nulab have done to this country. Your punishment has not yet begun.
To Anon @ 2:33pm
The reason that nobody has commented on the BG price rises is that Labour have stopped governing and are now only interested in clinging onto power for no particular reason.
None of the idle gits is even talking about the nation any more, just interested in the party.
They have passed the point of no return and are toast.
Dorset Boy
I haven't laughed so much for years. It brings back such fond memories of that other duplicitous Cabinet Member, the Rt Hon James Gordon Brown MP, as he schemed and plotted Blairs downfall.
Lets hum the Red Flag together!
"Oh Schadenfreude, oh Schadenfreude......."
Do you not think that this is all a well thought out plot by Labour...
Get the press talking about 'sacking Miliband' instead of Labour sacking Gordon Brown?
It's a fabricated distraction from the real issue...which is ...Gordon Brown must go.
And he must.
'destined to repeat it'
George Santanyana
Pass the popcorn, this is brilliant!
"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake."
Napoleon Bonaparte
Brown should do what Blair failed to do - sack trouble makers. I do not see how he is any better off allowing sniping from dipstick wannabees like the useless Milliband. Does anyone really think the Cabinet would be diminished if Brother Ed and matey Alexander resign?
One of the benefits of having a useless cabinet is that it does not matter if any of them resign. Milliband has already been promoted way beyond his abilities, its one of life's little ironies that it was only probably as a quid pro pro for not running against Brown in the first place.
It may well be that a desperate policy of windfall taxes might be in the offing - but Centrica are poised to buy a stake in the nuclear industry. Just where does the govt expect the money to come from if it hits them with a windfall tax? (BTW Centrica, the owner of British Gas, today reported a 17pc fall in first-half profits - is this a scenario for more taxes?)
And just how do we benefit from the govt taxing British Gas? The money does not come back to us it disappears into Browns great maw - to be utterly wasted.
I'll have some popcorn too ...salted please ...
Roll on roll on
Keep fighting boys
Brown did it to Brair for years
At last the country has the serious prospect of having the Lib Dems as the official opposition .....
Read Miliband's background in Wikipedia. With a very average A-levels how did he go to Oxford Uni?
He is grossly inexperienced. A professor years ago, I would not have selected him for a senior lectureship position. Real pygmy compared to Condi Rice who has impressive background.
If Brown paints Miliband as one of 'bastards', the historic scenario is complete. But Major atleast won one election.
I also get the feeling that Brown will not soon fade away to golf clubs in Fife. There is more drama to come beginning September.
Poor Millipede everyone has been saying how the left are so timid they cannot win anyhting . He has , made a bold move to get rid of Brown( which unusually you called utterly utterly wrongly). Now the blood-letting starts and we hold up our hands in horror.
He can`t win..( good)
The Brownites were of course hoping to win Glasgow East and claim that disaffection had bottomed out and that the only way was up, just in time for the recess. No doubt with several plans to bribe the electorate in the pipeline, they were hoping to see a steady rise from the lowest point over the next couple years helped by an improvement in the world economy.
The fact that they lost Glasgow East has certainly put the squeeze on this plan, with some seeing this as their best opportunity for a power grab.
Patrick, pass the popcorn please mate.
Ferrets in sack, Chapter 94.
The best bit was not Miliband's article, which was mostly Tory bashing, but the hysterical Southwold reaction: 'How dare he write an article without extolling the virtues of the Supreme Leader!'
"Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, laughed off suggestions Labour could be about to replace Mr Brown with someone "young and hip". "
"She said: "I don't think that's what we want at a time when people are worried about the economy.""
>>>>>Oh Jacqui, please listen to the public.
Yes, it's definitely what they want - change. The people of the UK do not want Gordon Brown as PM. Give us a vote if you don't believe us.
Anyone but Brown.
Of course he should sack the disloyal and useless space cadet.He has absolutely no experience of the real world at all.God knows how he ended up in one of the great offices of state.
He brings to mind Charles II's comment to his brother,the future JamesII:
"They will never kill me to make you King".
Anyway,if he gets away with it then Brown's authority has gone forever.He has to sack him"pour encourager les autres."
Another familiar aphorism on the past - history repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. If the Tory infighting in the 90s was a tragedy, the Labour Party shambles certainly is an unmissable, 24 carat, 5 star farce, played out by actors all of whom would struggle to get a job away from this particular stage.
Miliband as PM? Have they gone utterly and totally bonkers? He looks like my 5 year old's attempt to make a man out of meccano - you can see what is meant but it doesn't quite fit together. His personal back story will connect with Middle England about as well as a doubling of petrol prices - Marxist intellectual father, never had a proper job, heart-warming but slightly peculiar adoption practices - and he spouts Blairite cliches without any of the master showman's empathy or pananche.
The Tories are said to fear that Labour will replace Brown with someone less unpopular. If that person is Miliband, then somehow I don't think those fears are going to be keeping them awake at night.
Of course Miliband won't actually get the job - for some incomprehensible and unfair reason, most Labour MPs and party members think he's an over-promoted, jumped-up little prick.
Don't you just love the fact though that you turn on Sky or read any of the non Beeboid website stuff and they say the fight is on.
Go to the BBC and it's "nothing going on here, move along please..."
I'm waiting for the BBC to dig up another Caroline Spelman story. Must be one due.
Oh and how long before Gordon sends for his bottom washer Andy Marr to make an "official announcement" to the nation?
Miliband's background ....With a very average A-levels how did he go to Oxford Uni?
It was via some gov't scheme to get kids from London comprehensives into Oxbridge.
I have had my fingers in my ears all day, I have had to switch off every radio and TV, I can't look at any news feed - I am fed up with the cabinet members coming out to support Gordon. Zip, nill, null, zero, nothing.
Bring "Brains" on I say. If you actually check out his A level results and also realise that he got into Oxford on a back door scholarship thanks to living in the inner city (ie Primrose Hill) you'll realise he isn't what's cracked up to be intellectually.
If he's the cleverest they've got then no one should worry at Cameron's top table.
The way it's being couched is that he could at least give them a chance at not being drubbed next time out and he does have a very very safe seat.
The people of South Shields rarely see him that's true but they're not missing much.
Talking to him is like being chatted up by a minger in a bar at one in the morning. It's flattering, but it's still a minger.
Actually going to defend Milliband. I don't like him and think he is a bit of an idiot, but...
When Milliband would have applied to go to Oxford, there would have been entrance exams and doing well in those rather than A levels was what was important. He must have been reasonably bright since he managed a first. So please can we stop the abuse about his A levels? Also in the days when he took his A levels, 3 Bs would have been regarded as reasonably good, especially from an inner city comprehensive.
Why do I think he is a bit of an idiot? Mainly because he thought that the individual carbon account was a good idea. Overly complex, requiring a massive bureacracy and intrusion, inflexible. Totally unrealistic. Far better to hike the tax on power + fuel and to give some of the tax revenue to the poorest and those with large families. Can achieve the same aim with 99.9999% less effort. (Tax 6 firms vs fiddling with 60,000,000 individual accounts.) Anyone with an ounce of sense would have been able to work that one out in about a nanosecond. All this assuming that one thought carbon taxes were good.
The BBC are a joke. On the 6PM news yesterday they assured the prols that there was no leadership battle and we should all just move along and pay our gas bills.
Meanwhile Sky News and ITV were assuring us Miliband WAS making his first move.
So this evening James Lansdale re-writes BBC history by telling us there is a bit of a do going on.
And we pay for this rubbish from the BBC?
"Miliband's background ....With a very average A-levels how did he go to Oxford Uni?
It was via some gov't scheme to get kids from London comprehensives into Oxbridge."
His father was a professor, so he had a few contacts.
He got the same degree as David Cameron (a first in PPE).
What were Dave's 'A' levels like?
Ken: Sorry but a personal Carbon tax is a great idea. Why does it need to be bureaucratic? It would if run by a bunch of left wing Socialists/Communists who get their jobs in the Guardian.
Is ebay inefficient?
Besides if we all had individual CO2 limits we wouldn't have to put up with that idiot Roger Harrabin flying all over the world first class telling us about climate change as he's use his allowance up in a week.
A personal tax is a great idea. I hate flying and have only flown once in 10 years (for work).
I'd happily sell my Carbon credits to Polly Toynbee so she can take those well deserved holidays in Italy or wherever she has her summer home.
Re the nickname Campbell gave miliband...what was it...brain washed...brain storm...?
Anyway, in the light of that, would this be Miliband practising his presentation for the day when he is NOT going to Prime Minister?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2aRDacKANs
Listening to the news on BBC radio today, hearing the story about Bob and Geraldine being reported totally straight and without comment, I couldn't work out whether the news editor is an idiot or has his tongue firmly in his cheek.
The Labour Party always were more use to the interests of the British people IN OPPOSITION. Not only that many of their supporters are AGAIN starting to think the same it seems. In other words catching Lib/Dem voter disease.
"It was so much more fun in the good old 80s, slagging off those baby eating Tory's day in day out."
They could I believe, be forgiven for thinking.
Where as Conservatives will start to think to themselves." Remember the good old days back in the eighties, when we were in power, and those silly lefties used to call Thatcher a Nazi. Periodically marching around the place breaking policemen's heads. Constantly mouthing off all over the BBC about 'alternative economic policies' that was believed, never did really exist. Back when we used to laugh at what we thought were then 'unelectable PC nonsense'. Snug in the knowledge that there were still plenty who could remember the god almighty mess Labour made of just about everything last time."
Voters remember reasonably well, the problem is they are constantly getting older.
An adult voter in 1979 would now be at least 47 years old. As 18-30 year old voters, who also take much notice of their political environment are rare at anytime. The vast majority of the people who survived though the last Labour Government and then voted for Thatcher, are now in their sixties and seventies.
I think many of us have been here before. Now even 18 year olds can see the utter chaos and despair for themselves, yet again.
Atlas Shrugged
This could split the Labour Party and frankly that is long overdue.
It is IMHO a Socialist and Social Democratic (Blairite) Party joined together. I suspect the Blairite SDP will end up joined with the LibDems but who joins whom depends alot on timing and elections.
One thing you can be certain of, no evidence of Gordon requesting such calls to attack Miliband will ever be unearthed.
Click Refresh said...
"Of course Miliband won't actually get the job - for some incomprehensible and unfair reason, most Labour MPs and party members think he's an over-promoted, jumped-up little prick."
Yep, 'a pillock on a gap year' as I seem to recall Bob M-A previously saying. I haven't had so much fun since Lawson left Thatcher's Cabinet. Joy has returned and popcorn will be required until the not-far-distant death of the Labour Party.
@ Martin.
You are kidding right? In order to make a personal carbon account work, everything you buy and every service you purchase would require a carbon "price" that would be charged to your personal carbon account. So someone has to rate every product, every service, and then someone has to make sure that it charged to your account. Every firm would get a carbon allowance. The carbon price differs from the nominal money price as some products are carbon intensive and some very carbon light. It is impossible to fully envisage how horrible this process would be, and how inefficient. The mind really does boggle.
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