Jackie Ashley writes in The Guardian today that Conservatives are pushing the cause of David Miliband because we would rather face him in a General Election than Gordon Brown. Again, darling Jackie lets political prejudice get the better of her increasingly weak political judgement. Can I make clear that given the choice I'd far rather have Gordon Brown as an opponent than Miliband. People have looked at Gordon Brown and they have made their minds up about him - and they don't like what they see. In Miliband's case they still have an open mind. His opinion poll ratings are slightly worse than Brown's because people don't know much about him. He also appears too much like David Cameron to give voters a real choice. In reality the differences are huge but perceptually that's not the case.
So, Jackie, give us Gordon any day. Any man who has the bad sense to make Geoff Hoon one of his campaign cheerleaders has to be good news for the Tories.
31 comments:
So would I he cannot credibly make a case for tax cuts which labour have to do . I begin to think that Cameron might be a little braver.. although one understands silence
It's over for Labour, so there is nothing for Milliband to lead. I had previously thought the the next election would be a narrow Labour victory or a hung parliament. After the apalling budget, I have revised my view and think that with Brown as Labour leader, at worst the next election will be a hung parliament with the Tories as clear winners and largest party, or a clear Tory majority in parliament and Cameron government.
Milliband very wise to stay clear of all this and then re-invent NuLab from opposition as it's new Leader.
It's difficult to say. David is a nice lad put talks like a "policy wonk" so presentation is a not a strong point. Cameron would be miles ahead on this point.
Besides, with The Prince of Darkness pulling your strings.....
Yup, I agree, basic crap judgment from Jackie Ashley.
I don't agree - Gordon is a heavyweight, Milibland is a lightweight.
If you think the poll numbers are bad for Labour with Gordon, wait to see where they would be with Miliband.
Doesn't matter whom they pick as leader. NuLab is finished and will be defeated at the next General Election. The leaders of NuLab are a tired and discredited bunch of conmen. The policy differences between NuCon and NuLab are too small now for the average voter to form an opinion on that score so the main parties will be judged on personalites and NuLab on past performance. So we have Cameron/Davis/Hague/Johnson versus Brown/Straw/Miliband?/ er, er! The Conservatives now look young and fresh against the present shower. The only Labour MP's I can bear to look at at the moment are Harriet Harman and Frank Field. Good people.
There seems to be a consensus here. People - even Labour people - have got the wind up about Brown, and he really is getting an appalling press just now. Miliband - despite that big interview in the Telegraph the other week - comes over as a wonk and a robot. Being good on TV and affable with Paxman isn't enough and, don't forget, he has been part of the New Labour project for years. So there is actually nothing new or fresh there. Suspect Brown will have a fairly grim time as PM and then lose horribly.
Agree about Geoff Hoon. When he was armed forces minister he was known in the servces as "Buff". Would have been quite a compliment, if you didn't know his surname ...
I suspect that Miliband's support will increase as a result of Guido's pathetic accounting skills...
Better to fight Miliband as Labour would at that point be in turmoil with the Bogeyman prowling the back benches. Labour woudl crash and burn, taking Miliband with it. I suspect Gordo's actions could create a split if not before, then after the election.
Miliband is no dimwit. I think he will play it cool until Gordo has done himself in.
That leaves the Siberian Power Station Superintendent.
Jailhouse
You credit Guido with far too much influence in the political arena, they are however somewhat higher than the opinions of a convicted axe murderer.
I think Labour know that in just a few short years, Miliband's generation will have enough real experience of government and political realities to create a solid base for the future, and who don't have the scars of the 1980's on their backs like the current lot.
Conservatives might think it was clever to go younger so soon, but they are all deeply inexperienced (except for having given Lamont political advice - hardly a CV highlight) and detached from the mass of the party. You've put the kids in charge, and they don't know what they are doing.
Miliband is just fine where he is, he has seen other young colleagues, such as Ruth Kelly, get out of their depth due more to a lack of political nous (knowing who's trying to stab you in the back) than any deeper problem. Give them a couple of years and the Labour frontbench of the Miliband bros, Ed Balls, Douglas Alexander, Yvette Cooper, Andy Burnham, Ruth Kelly etc will be a real force.
They can use Brown's premiership to dig themselves in deep, and take the party with them.
The Conservatives want to play the youth card, but they have too few youths in the party or in Parliament to back that up.
anonymong 12.01: I credit Guido with no such thing. I let the cretins do that.
Try taking some English lessons.
Convicted axe-manslaughterer, to be precise.
Anything else? Like answering the point?
It is not worth arguing anything with a murderer who publicly states he does not repent of or regret his crime. You took brutally an old woman's life. Debate is for decent people you have forfeited your right to be engaged in argument
Xerxes that is typical of a Labour supporter , . You talk about it as if it was somewhere between a football teams and an advertising campaign.
There is no point in any of them because all the Labour Party believe in has been shown to be wrong. Do they seriously think that Brown can pretend to be a Conservative? As for Milliband and this younger lot career wonks whose creed is pragmatism ..ie what suits them undermine the last start of the Labour Party .
this is that in some way they are unable to define they wish to be good . This leads them to feeling sorry for everyone who hates the country even if they are a fascist despot or theocratic far right nest of traitors.
Labour are already dead in England and I doubt they will survive in Scotland post independence. Labour have got far worse problems than they will own up to namely that they have no direction for the next century. Why is it called labour by the way almost anyone working is unlikely to vote for them? Shouldn’t it be re-named the Benefit pro immigration Party. It would clear up some confusion in London at least .
Come to think of it its about time for new name isn`t it. New Labour sounds increasingly ridiculous.
1 State Surveillance and Parenting Party ?
2 The Tax raising Party
3 The Scottish Socialist Party
4 The Anti English Party
People always say you shouldn`t label but I think a nice clear label is a great help to the consumer and voter.
Anonymong 12.53: You are no longer anonymous, you are clearly stupid...
Perhaps a Labour contributor could tell us in what ways Milliband's supervision of DEFRA makes him eligible for Leadership of a once great Party?
With the news that the hand of the once great, all-powerful Peter Mandelson is all over this Millpede for leader campaign perhaps we should all give Barry Manilow a listen
Well you came and you gave without taking
but I sent you away, oh Mandy
well you kissed me and stopped me from shaking
I need you today, oh Mandy
Newmania...
I realise the idea of building a strong political team is anathema to your party which has struggled to find a single politician of note since Thatcher, competing with itself to find successively ridiculous leaders until the nadir of Michael Howard. At least that made you realise that popularity, however vulgar that may seem to your inflated sense of entitlement, tends to help out in elections.
Your obvious contempt for the clear majorities the British public has delivered for ten years would be astounding if it weren't the same Tory arrogance that has always sustained you. You convince yourselves that the 97 landslide was an aberration, that the people have gone temporarily mad, and that it is they who must change, not the Tory party.
Your advertising exec leader has clearly realised this, and has also realised that the poor hating, immigrant hating tumours at the heart of his party (you), need to be excised before the voters will even consider putting you near office again.
You are the problem with your party, and I'm happy you are there. Every time I worry that the Conservatives have taken a moment of reflection and realised it isn't 1987 anymore, and have attempted to adapt, I just need to read your ramblings, and I am at once becalmed.
Keep up the good work.
daommrXerces said
” I realise the idea of building a strong political team is anathema to your party which has struggled to find a single politician of note since Thatcher, competing with itself to find successively ridiculous leaders until the nadir of Michael Howard.”
True true …although I rate IDS as the nadir myself …..
“ At least that made you realise that popularity, however vulgar that may seem to your inflated sense of entitlement, tends to help out in elections.”
I wouldn’t criticise a misguided sense of entitlement if I were you those are the only votes you get ..ie form benefits serfs , in the South. Sadly for you on 28 % to our 43% , despite nothing in Scotland and precious little in Wales and parts of the North for us , you are making your point at an unfortunate time.
“. You convince yourselves that the 97 landslide was an aberration, that the people have gone temporarily mad, and that it is they who must change, not the Tory party.”
It was Europe and the ERM that did it also the back lash against Margaret Thatcher who I agree is the best we have had and made difficult political decisions on principle . I do hope you are not putting the smarmy liar Blair in the same bracket. The electorate had forgotten what Socialism was .The extraordinarily clement economic weather that Brown has quite squandered by making us the slowest growing economy in the English speaking world , kept the secret. The fact that the Labour Party has been devoted to the maintenance of power for its own sake more than any administration we have had anaesthetised for a while …it over now .
”Your advertising exec leader has clearly realised this, and has also realised that the poor hating, immigrant hating tumours…blah blah”
It would appear you are mistaken and in fact the Labour Party as you may be aware are desperately trying to appear tough on immigrants and low tax. They will not be trusted at this stage and I think it is the fact that Blair , who I voted for , had a chance with frank Field to do some of this ten years ago is his greatest and in the end , irrecoverable failure . The poor are not helped by state hand outs in the end and social division has increased every year of this principle free administration. As for immigrant haters , hardly , I do demand that the culture and rights of the people of this country are protected though. You and the Labour Party hate only the white working class who are returning the compliment
“I am at once becalmed.”
Indeed you are .. ”rendered motionless by the absence of wind” Perhaps that why they are getting the old idiot windy Kinnock back
I liked the description of Labour by Newmania as the 'pro immigrants pro benefit party' very funny indeed.
A better name would be'pro fox party'.
You may not realise how much store I put in this simple adjective to rout the Tories for a record 4th term.
But I do.All I ask is that the buffoon Boris Johnson does his stint about fox killing prior to the election and it's in the bag for Labour.
Reason? All 18-28(+) have never seen a Tory government.
All 18-28 bracket love foxes.
Gary
Tom said,
In a contest between the millipede and the chameleon, the insect would be eaten
In less than a minute, I believe :) Chameleons primary eat locusts, cockroaches and preying mantids, creatures which are scourges of our green planet and its bio-diversity.
Preying Mantids (or greedy PM's) in particular, are vile cannibals, ice hearted predators and the executioner apparatchiks of the animal kingdom. They love nothing better than to kill hapless little humming birds, which do no harm to anything, by shooting them through the heart with the wicked, spiked barb that greedy PMs carry just for this purpose.
So chameleons are much loved and serve the planet well in killing these insects. Nulab, with their instinctive dislike and fear of nature and the countryside, were incapable of grasping that it would be counter productive to characterise Cameron as a chameleon because this would only add to his popularity ans reveal what stupid and nasty bitches nulab really are.
Go on Lefties - make our day - elect (or just appoint) the Kirkcaldy Clunking Fist.
Merely Bland is as hopeless as the rest.Happy days.
Well, doh, obviously Iain! If you were fighting Brown you'd be in Scotland would have no chance whatsoever. At least in the NE you'd be in England. Silly billy! But of course the peeps in No 11 and DEFRA are not hanging on your every word ...
Gary elsby stoke:
18-28 year olds may like foxes in Stoke.
Out here in the country they prefer chickens and small pets.
sorry..but i don't buy it...i mean, if i fear someone i wouldn't tell this person,because the person would have a big advantage,but that exactly the contrary of what you and others Conservative are doing...so the Conservative are telling everyone who they fears most,giving a big advantage to their opponents.Even the most idiot person wouldn't do it,so,please,cut the crap,
You might want to blog THIS - Fawkes needs to get a grip or he'll be a laughing stock. Meanwhile Dale wants to be a PPC in Brown's Scotland seat so he can be beaten there rather than in the NE where Miliband can stuff him? Or placing himself in the place of the wannabe Bullingdon Bullshitter PM?
Hoon is a cloon as they say in Scotland.
OK Mark, I get your drift but would you like to practice the Tory sales pitch for us?
I refer explicitly to removing a foxhunting ban and I'd like you to pitch it to a youg audience who may be approx 32 years old and graduated, two kids and a home.
I really wouldn't advise this line for a Party that once ruled the world but it is your funeral.
I predict the above cohort to make up about 33% of the electorate.
Over to you.
Gary
Iain
At a conference in November 2005 I asked George Osborne who he'd rather face as an opponent, Brown or Miliaband and he answered without hesitation, Brown
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