News that David Miliband, the former Foreign
Secretary and Tony Blair protégé is taking a job away from British politics to
run International Rescue Committee in New York (I hope he thanked bill Clinton
for the leg-up) ends an interesting chapter in British politics.
David Miliband was always going to be Blair’s
heir – but he lacked the political and personal ambition to grab the prize, on
three occasions he blew his chance.
Firstly, in 2007 by not standing against Gordon Brown who was then
elected unopposed. Secondly, in 2010
before the election when we could all see how bad Gordon Brown was as PM, but
despite a groundswell of support he bottled it.
And final, in the leadership face off with his younger brother after the
2010 general election.
Peter Oborne writing in the Telegraph is not sad to see him go:
http://getwd50.blogspot.com/2013/03/a-political-death-in-new-york.html
Peter Oborne writing in the Telegraph is not sad to see him go:
http://getwd50.blogspot.com/2013/03/a-political-death-in-new-york.html
This move to New York signals the final
convulsion of the fratricide Ed committed on his more talented brother’s
political career. Who will forget the
moment when the five candidates, for the Labour leadership heard the results of
their campaign to succeed Gordon Brown.
Ed Miliband was at the centre of a semi-circle of candidates with David
standing next to him. His main rival and
the man expected to win. When the vote
went the wrong way the room fell silent as all the losing candidates squirmed
with embarrassment for David. Ed
Miliband won by a wafer-thin margin of just 1.3 percentage points, thanks to
Trade Union block votes. I am sure David
Miliband is a loss to British politics but he was obviously never cut out for
the top job in the Labour Party, much less Prime Minister. His brother however is a different kettle of
fish.
Since being elected leader of his party Ed
Miliband has shown himself to be an amazingly adept politician. Although he patently has no strong views or
beliefs he has got Cameron on the run and it’s possible he will win a majority
in the 2015 election. His success is
founded on a knack for opportunism. His
approach in opposition has been to stick to a limited script which focusses on
painting the Tory Cabinet as group of amateur politicians with enormous private
incomes. His relentless negativity has
been successful but he has embellished this campaign against privilege with
some master strokes of opportunism. In
no particular order my favourites are:
- Presenting himself as pro-Europe but siding with the hard right wing of the Tory party to vote against Cameron’s hard won budget deal
- Jumping on the plebgate bandwagon with a hateful zeal
- His resounding opposition to the welfare changes that he will have to enforce if he gets into power. As fellow Labour MP John Crudas says "Simply opposing the cuts without an alternative is no good"
- His support for the anti-libertarian 'Hacked off' campaign in the question of Press regulation
- And the defence of the indefensible NHS
- And of course the fratricide of his brother’s political career.
This mixture a childish class war rhetoric and
inspire opportunism is proving to be a popular cocktail, the only question is, will it last? My bet is that he will
jettison the campaign against privilege at some point and focus more on the obvious
ineptitude of some government departments.
But we can be sure he won’t lose his touch for bare faced political
opportunism – sit back and enjoy a master at work!
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