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LRB blog

Ed's Enemies

Edward Pearce

Ed Miliband’s enemies in the Labour Party are indulging in luxury: a pointless, expensive thing that only people with four years to spend can afford. Up to a point, they resemble John Major’s enemies in the Tory Party – a chorus of Viv Nicholsons who spent, spent, spent down to the penury of 165 surviving MPs in 1997. Those Tories had a reason, if an absurd one. They were hung up on the EU as a conspiracy by the heirs of Hitler to abolish England. The other motive for hating Major was devotion (in the High Church sense) to Margaret Thatcher, Queen and Martyr.

Ed's enemies have no discernible principle, however misguided. They dream only of David: limp, charming US conformist, token foreign secretary, but the rightful heir to the shining void of Blairism. Childish beyond words, their view is supplemented by the trivialist press. Sketchwriters, too idle to stay for any parliamentary business except the leaders' set piece, expatiate on voice timbre, assurance quotient, facial appearance and high-profile oneupmanship. The government meanwhile is rolling over in contradictions, policy reversals and ‘clarifications’. The opposition won’t need a ‘stronger’ leader to defeat them at the next election. They might try calm or reticence or even unity – or that bit in the Brer Rabbit books about lying low and saying nothing.

miliband politics

Comments

  • 21 June 2011 at 3:26pm
    Phil Edwards says:
    This was a joke, but I think it would actually work - if Miliband dropped off the radar until six months before the next election, then gave a press conference announcing that the Labour party (a) still existed and (b) had policies different from the Coalition, they'd probably get a majority. It would certainly be better than his current strategy, which seems to involve asking himself what Blair would say, thinking of something slightly left-wing and splitting the difference. As for the neo-Blairites (post-Blairites? crypto-Blairites?), a period of silence on their part would be most welcome.
    • 26 June 2011 at 9:52pm
      ejh says: @ Phil Edwards
      It's roughly the policy that has been successfully pursued by the opposition in Spain for three years now. Say nothing, just not be the government.
  • 25 June 2011 at 4:07pm
    Attrition says:
    Liarbour doesn't have different policies, it's the third tory partei of the coalition.