That's all well and good but the last Labour leader to win an election pretty much disregarded his written and spoken pledges and proceeded to ignore the needs and wants of the working population to bribe his chums and a base of those trapped in welfare dependency. Since Ed Miliband has gone back on his word several times during his tenure as Opposition Leader, I cannot reasonably expect him to keep any promises he makes if the worst happens and he does find himself in Downing Street.
Labour cannot realistically claim their manifesto is fully costed - it is so light on detail that they could make a hundred different budgets or policies and still reasonably claim that they've stuck to their spending plans. Everyone knows that the economy is one of their biggest weaknesses and they've done little to dispel this image.
It's enjoyable debating with you. Because you rarely come up with anything to support your assertions; and you ignore anything that's provided as a counter-argument. But, for the sake of continuity, let me bite: what are some of the *specific* items that Ed Miliband has promised while Leader of the Opposition that he has subsequently reversed?
This isn't Wikipedia - this is a thread discussing politics so I expect those contributing to the thread to at least read the news or inform themselves about current events, in the same way that those contributing to match-day threads should at least know what happened at the match, so I'm not going to cite sources for every assertion I make (also, no one else in the thread, including you, does this, so I think you're singling me out for personal reasons). Since you clearly don't read any news, or at least any news where the Labour Party is shown in a negative light, I will give you a one-off opportunity to enlighten yourself.
And I won't post that photo, but remember when Ed claimed he would stand up to Murdoch, then decided to get his photo taken grinning whilst holding up a copy of The Sun, Murdoch's best-selling paper?
I could post more but to be honest that's far more than anything you've ever posted to support your assertions.
You keep posting links to articles that you imply are 'evidence' and 'fact based proof' when in fact these articles are simply expressing opinions which you agree with.
Erm, they cite events that actually happened (for example, Miliband previously agreeing to vote for action in Syria, then bottling it, then lying about it on national TV). You do realise that's pretty much how all history is recorded? Or was World War II just someone's opinion?
Good grief, the mental gymnastics some people go through in order to ignore facts beggars belief. The fact is the events listed in the articles I have posted are falsifiable i.e. if it is untrue and the events did not actually take place then there is something that can prove it. Instead of denying it, why not cite your proof?
Must admit i've always failed to understand how the Conservanorveners''tive Party struggle to relate so well to the 'co ammon working man'. One of the fundamental long-term policies of the Conservatives has been to adopt the approach of keeping tax as low as possible, so that the individual keeps as much as what they earn as possible (possibly at the sacrifice of generic public spending).
In an increasingly selfish and narrow-focused world, i can't understand how this policy doesn't win them more genuine support from the common working man (well, Norveners) than it does in comparison to Labour, who's fundamental long-term policy on this has been to adopt a higher tax ethos for greater public spending.
If you looked at it coldly, in this age you would expect the Conservative policy to be more appealing on an individual basis across the board than it is.
Anyone cleverer than me have an insight on this?
Err .. not saying cleverer .. BUT .. It was only when I moved from London to 'the norv' that I fully appreciated the social and industrial destruction wrought on 'the norv' by the Thatcher government. May I also say that Labour has done not a lot to remedy the manifold problems and 'New Labour' is almost as virulent a curse in many places as is 'Tory'. This happened a long time (comparatively) ago but the damage was severe, long lasting and remains to this day; whole towns and villages without work, youngsters having to travel or move to the big cities to find a decent job, grown men who have lost their industrial/ manufacturing/ mining/ physical employment, their pride gone, and now have to work stacking shelves or cleaning up in fast food joints, IF they can find a job of any kind. Many say 'feck it' and decide to live on benefits which the tories would love to cut to the bone. The working peoples' social structure, a hangover from the Industrial Revolution when GB's fortune was 'norvern' manufactured totally demolished .. THIS is why 'working class norveners' will neither trust nor vote for the tories. Many will not vote labour either, but Lab is the lesser of two 'evils' UKIP will get a lot of votes in the 'norv' but not many seats. This makes the election outcome uncertain, will Labour or the tories sneak in under the radar and be forced into another coalition. If Labour goes into a coalition with the SNP, expect metaphorical bloodshed and a right wing working man's 'revolution' in 'the norv'
That's all well and good but the last Labour leader to win an election pretty much disregarded his written and spoken pledges and proceeded to ignore the needs and wants of the working population to bribe his chums and a base of those trapped in welfare dependency. Since Ed Miliband has gone back on his word several times during his tenure as Opposition Leader, I cannot reasonably expect him to keep any promises he makes if the worst happens and he does find himself in Downing Street.
Labour cannot realistically claim their manifesto is fully costed - it is so light on detail that they could make a hundred different budgets or policies and still reasonably claim that they've stuck to their spending plans. Everyone knows that the economy is one of their biggest weaknesses and they've done little to dispel this image.
It's enjoyable debating with you. Because you rarely come up with anything to support your assertions; and you ignore anything that's provided as a counter-argument. But, for the sake of continuity, let me bite: what are some of the *specific* items that Ed Miliband has promised while Leader of the Opposition that he has subsequently reversed?
This isn't Wikipedia - this is a thread discussing politics so I expect those contributing to the thread to at least read the news or inform themselves about current events, in the same way that those contributing to match-day threads should at least know what happened at the match, so I'm not going to cite sources for every assertion I make (also, no one else in the thread, including you, does this, so I think you're singling me out for personal reasons). Since you clearly don't read any news, or at least any news where the Labour Party is shown in a negative light, I will give you a one-off opportunity to enlighten yourself.
And I won't post that photo, but remember when Ed claimed he would stand up to Murdoch, then decided to get his photo taken grinning whilst holding up a copy of The Sun, Murdoch's best-selling paper?
I could post more but to be honest that's far more than anything you've ever posted to support your assertions.
You keep posting links to articles that you imply are 'evidence' and 'fact based proof' when in fact these articles are simply expressing opinions which you agree with.
Erm, they cite events that actually happened (for example, Miliband previously agreeing to vote for action in Syria, then bottling it, then lying about it on national TV). You do realise that's pretty much how all history is recorded? Or was World War II just someone's opinion?
Good grief, the mental gymnastics some people go through in order to ignore facts beggars belief. The fact is the events listed in the articles I have posted are falsifiable i.e. if it is untrue and the events did not actually take place then there is something that can prove it. Instead of denying it, why not cite your proof?
I am not questioning the verifiable events that these articles refer to. It is the entirely predictable spin and subjective judgements made by the authors of these articles that render them to not be 'fact based evidence' but merely opinion pieces.
That's all well and good but the last Labour leader to win an election pretty much disregarded his written and spoken pledges and proceeded to ignore the needs and wants of the working population to bribe his chums and a base of those trapped in welfare dependency. Since Ed Miliband has gone back on his word several times during his tenure as Opposition Leader, I cannot reasonably expect him to keep any promises he makes if the worst happens and he does find himself in Downing Street.
Labour cannot realistically claim their manifesto is fully costed - it is so light on detail that they could make a hundred different budgets or policies and still reasonably claim that they've stuck to their spending plans. Everyone knows that the economy is one of their biggest weaknesses and they've done little to dispel this image.
It's enjoyable debating with you. Because you rarely come up with anything to support your assertions; and you ignore anything that's provided as a counter-argument. But, for the sake of continuity, let me bite: what are some of the *specific* items that Ed Miliband has promised while Leader of the Opposition that he has subsequently reversed?
This isn't Wikipedia - this is a thread discussing politics so I expect those contributing to the thread to at least read the news or inform themselves about current events, in the same way that those contributing to match-day threads should at least know what happened at the match, so I'm not going to cite sources for every assertion I make (also, no one else in the thread, including you, does this, so I think you're singling me out for personal reasons). Since you clearly don't read any news, or at least any news where the Labour Party is shown in a negative light, I will give you a one-off opportunity to enlighten yourself.
And I won't post that photo, but remember when Ed claimed he would stand up to Murdoch, then decided to get his photo taken grinning whilst holding up a copy of The Sun, Murdoch's best-selling paper?
I could post more but to be honest that's far more than anything you've ever posted to support your assertions.
You keep posting links to articles that you imply are 'evidence' and 'fact based proof' when in fact these articles are simply expressing opinions which you agree with.
Erm, they cite events that actually happened (for example, Miliband previously agreeing to vote for action in Syria, then bottling it, then lying about it on national TV). You do realise that's pretty much how all history is recorded? Or was World War II just someone's opinion?
Good grief, the mental gymnastics some people go through in order to ignore facts beggars belief. The fact is the events listed in the articles I have posted are falsifiable i.e. if it is untrue and the events did not actually take place then there is something that can prove it. Instead of denying it, why not cite your proof?
I am not questioning the verifiable events that these articles refer to. It is the entirely predictable spin and subjective judgements made by the authors of these articles that render them to not be 'fact based evidence' but merely opinion pieces.
The verifiable events of the articles were the only parts I was citing so I don't really see what your problem is. If you Google it you'll find other sources backing me up (I found plenty I just picked the top hits).
Just selected one of the articles you linked and I have highlighted the spin from the verifiable facts and it is clearly mostly spin.
It’s time to stop trying to fix Ed Miliband. Ever since he was elected, supporters, colleagues, commentators and even some enemies have attempted to knock the Labour leader into shape: he should be radical; he should be pragmatic; he should be like Blair; he should be true to himself.
At the heart of this process was a belief that, sooner or later, Miliband would come good. It would take time, but eventually this ugly duckling would transform into a swan. “Give it a year,” we were told. Then two, then three. “Wait till people get to know him,” his allies said. People got to know him – and the more they saw of him, the less they liked. There were promises that Miliband would seize the agenda, catch the public mood, drag the political centre to the Left. Instead, he squandered the gift that was the Tory annus horribilis of 2012, handed the mantle of opposition leader to Nigel Farage, and watched impotently as the public mood shifted decisively to the Right. It is time to face facts: Miliband is not coming good. There will be no Clause Four moment.
And yet, two weeks ago, I thought I was witnessing one. There was a flurry of dramatic announcements, including a pledge to match Tory spending limits, a welfare cap and the dropping of Labour’s long-standing commitment to universality in the benefits system. Yesterday saw another major intervention, as the party pledged to extend academy independence to other state schools. But then I realised that, amid all the excitement, something was missing: the leader of the Labour Party. Ed Balls was deployed on spending and universality, Stephen Twigg, the shadow education secretary, on education. Various shadowy “Labour sources” trailed the policy shifts on child benefit and the welfare cap. Miliband himself appeared once – to announce that the cap on welfare would not actually involve a reduction in anyone’s benefits – then disappeared again.
For Labour, the policy changes we have seen over the past few weeks mark a significant political advance. But for Miliband, they represent a comprehensive retreat. Everything of significance he has done or said since becoming leader has been shown to be wrong. He told the shadow cabinet in December that the Tories had made a major strategic blunder on welfare, and he intended to fight it. Then came the Mick Philpott affair, the ensuing public backlash, and Miliband found himself utterly routed on the issue. The white flag of surrender, in the form of Labour’s own welfare cap, was duly hoisted.
The Labour leader had also claimed that the public mood had shifted decisively against austerity, and the Coalition’s deficit reduction strategy. Yet despite the worst economic slump for over a century, the Conservatives continued to out-poll Labour on economic competence. Once again, the white flag had to be raised, this time in the form of a commitment to stick to Tory spending limits.
In one of his first decisions after taking the top job, Miliband announced he would oppose Government cuts to child benefit. Asked if millionaires should still receive the payment, he claimed: “I’m in favour of that, yes, and I’m in favour of it because it’s a cornerstone of our system to have universal benefits.” Then, the predicted middle-class backlash against the cut failed to materialise – up went the white flag for a third time.
If Miliband was smart, he would have spent the past fortnight making a virtue out of necessity. He would have taken clear ownership of these significant U-turns, signalled a major change of direction for his party and framed the whole thing as a bold rebranding of Labour in the run-up to 2015. But he is not smart, so he did none of those things. He attempted to minimise his personal exposure, by allowing others to take the lead on the announcements. He tried to downplay their significance. Worst of all, he tried to give an impression to his own party that he was reluctantly acceding to this change of stance, and that his instincts lay in a different ideological direction. Which, to be fair, they do. Miliband hasn’t just been wrong on almost every major area of policy: his entire political world view has been shown to be bankrupt. When the Occupy movement was camped outside St Paul’s Cathedral, he told aides that this heralded a revolution in the way British politics would be conducted. Indeed, such was his belief in the power of this new approach that there were plans for him to go down and publicly align himself with the protesters.
He was convinced the financial crisis of 2008 would give birth to a new radicalism. Not in a million years did it occur to him that the chill, uncertain winds of austerity would create a new conservatism.
None of this in itself ensures Miliband’s defeat at the next election. There are examples of critically flawed politicians who still managed to secure the ultimate prize: Harold Wilson in his second term, John Major, Gordon Brown. But it’s time to drop the pretence. Labour may scrape home in 2015, but it will be despite its leader, not because of him. There is no “new” Ed Miliband waiting to emerge from the shadows. It is not a question of more time, or more repositioning, or more flesh on the bones of Labour’s skeletal political prospectus. The real Labour leader is already standing up, and he has been for the past three years. Ed Miliband is broken. Nothing can fix him now.
That's all well and good but the last Labour leader to win an election pretty much disregarded his written and spoken pledges and proceeded to ignore the needs and wants of the working population to bribe his chums and a base of those trapped in welfare dependency. Since Ed Miliband has gone back on his word several times during his tenure as Opposition Leader, I cannot reasonably expect him to keep any promises he makes if the worst happens and he does find himself in Downing Street.
Labour cannot realistically claim their manifesto is fully costed - it is so light on detail that they could make a hundred different budgets or policies and still reasonably claim that they've stuck to their spending plans. Everyone knows that the economy is one of their biggest weaknesses and they've done little to dispel this image.
It's enjoyable debating with you. Because you rarely come up with anything to support your assertions; and you ignore anything that's provided as a counter-argument. But, for the sake of continuity, let me bite: what are some of the *specific* items that Ed Miliband has promised while Leader of the Opposition that he has subsequently reversed?
This isn't Wikipedia - this is a thread discussing politics so I expect those contributing to the thread to at least read the news or inform themselves about current events, in the same way that those contributing to match-day threads should at least know what happened at the match, so I'm not going to cite sources for every assertion I make (also, no one else in the thread, including you, does this, so I think you're singling me out for personal reasons). Since you clearly don't read any news, or at least any news where the Labour Party is shown in a negative light, I will give you a one-off opportunity to enlighten yourself.
And I won't post that photo, but remember when Ed claimed he would stand up to Murdoch, then decided to get his photo taken grinning whilst holding up a copy of The Sun, Murdoch's best-selling paper?
I could post more but to be honest that's far more than anything you've ever posted to support your assertions.
You keep posting links to articles that you imply are 'evidence' and 'fact based proof' when in fact these articles are simply expressing opinions which you agree with.
Erm, they cite events that actually happened (for example, Miliband previously agreeing to vote for action in Syria, then bottling it, then lying about it on national TV). You do realise that's pretty much how all history is recorded? Or was World War II just someone's opinion?
Good grief, the mental gymnastics some people go through in order to ignore facts beggars belief. The fact is the events listed in the articles I have posted are falsifiable i.e. if it is untrue and the events did not actually take place then there is something that can prove it. Instead of denying it, why not cite your proof?
Or changed his mind perhaps. Persuaded that it was not the best course of action. I would suggest you look at all the alternatives before suggesting he "bottled it" but I doubt that would fit in with your agenda.
Its quite easy, the rich get richer under a Tory government and the poor get poorer. Always been the case and always will be.
This is only half true. The rich have always gotten richer, whether under Tories or Labour, however neither under the 18 year Tory government or the 5 year Coalition have the poor been left poorer. Figures indicate that the poor will be slightly better off in 2015 than they were in 2010 and that's before you take into account the cyclical effect of the global financial crisis that was still at its peak when the Coalition came to power.
So are you saying that there was a global financial crisis rather than a national financial crisis?
Yes, that is correct.
Would you then say that therefore the last government was not responsible for the financial crisis?
Yes I would agree with that statement.
They were however responsible for running a damaging tax and spend policy which weakened the UK's financial stability, meaning that the effects of the global financial crisis on the UK economy were much worse than they would have otherwise been and directly leading to the austerity policy.
I won't be voting Labour, but surely* there tax and spend govt spent less than previous Tory governments until the global financial crisis.
*Evidence provided elsewhere and I can't be arsed to look it up.
I think the labour party is very much for people like NLA. Hard working small business men. I would advise you to look more carefully at what they can offer. I understand your issue with zero hours contracts, but as you say a lot of your work is seasonal, there may be other options that wont affect you at all. What the Labour party is about is stopping the exploitation of workers by big corporations, not hard working working class people like you.
Its quite easy, the rich get richer under a Tory government and the poor get poorer. Always been the case and always will be.
This is only half true. The rich have always gotten richer, whether under Tories or Labour, however neither under the 18 year Tory government or the 5 year Coalition have the poor been left poorer. Figures indicate that the poor will be slightly better off in 2015 than they were in 2010 and that's before you take into account the cyclical effect of the global financial crisis that was still at its peak when the Coalition came to power.
So are you saying that there was a global financial crisis rather than a national financial crisis?
Yes, that is correct.
Would you then say that therefore the last government was not responsible for the financial crisis?
Totally blameless. They were just brilliant.
(Just dont read this blog from that old right winger, Sean Thomas in the Telegraph ''Labour 1997 - 2010 was the Worst Government Ever.'')
Evan hasn't been clever enough here and is playing into Nige's hands. UKIP's core support will be loving the "BBC bias" and using it to defend their candidate.
The best thing that Nigel Farage said during his whole interview is that the FPTP system encourages continued Labour/Tory tribal dominance where people feel attached to their party in some sort of red vs. blue debate.
This whole Grant Shapps story is based on the word of one volunteer administrator. Hardly compelling evidence.
Er, no, it's the IP addresses that are consistent with those of his office as discovered by a Wikipedia investigation.
Is Grant Shapps the only person in his office?
I don't think the Chairman of any political party is stupid enough to edit their own Wikipedia entry from their own office, especially weeks before an election. As Shapps has been stung on this before, he's definitely smart enough to know not to do this.
I think the accusation was/is that it was him or somebody in his office who had done it. lol. Anyway, he will wait until after the election before deciding whether to sue. Bet we don't hear a dicky bird about this after the election.
I think the accusation was/is that it was him or somebody in his office who had done it. lol. Anyway, he will wait until after the election before deciding whether to sue. Bet we don't hear a dicky bird about this after the election.
Probably someone in his office acting on their own initiative. Outside chance it is him. Possibility that someone is attempting to set up Shapps in order to produce a news story close to the election, and this third one is being speculated.
This whole Grant Shapps story is based on the word of one volunteer administrator. Hardly compelling evidence.
Er, no, it's the IP addresses that are consistent with those of his office as discovered by a Wikipedia investigation.
Is Grant Shapps the only person in his office?
I don't think the Chairman of any political party is stupid enough to edit their own Wikipedia entry from their own office, especially weeks before an election. As Shapps has been stung on this before, he's definitely smart enough to know not to do this.
So, in short, "he would never do such a thing, especially as he got caught doing it before". Is that about it?
Fiish - you have plummeted new depths in your defence of Mr Shapps/Green/theothernameheused. Any good points you make, are for me ruined by your need to slavishly follow Conservative Central Office dictate.
This whole Grant Shapps story is based on the word of one volunteer administrator. Hardly compelling evidence.
Er, no, it's the IP addresses that are consistent with those of his office as discovered by a Wikipedia investigation.
Is Grant Shapps the only person in his office?
I don't think the Chairman of any political party is stupid enough to edit their own Wikipedia entry from their own office, especially weeks before an election. As Shapps has been stung on this before, he's definitely smart enough to know not to do this.
Oh come on. You really are so biased it's embarrassing. This blokes been caught lying already and now this. What's worse is that Cameron is sticking by him. You couldn't make it up. Lol.
Haven't watched the Farage thing yet, sit down watch TV time usually starts at about 23-30ish will watch it then, can't imagine he can say anything to change my low opinion of him, he still makes my skin crawl.
Non party political point here - Shapps is one of the most ambitious politicians out there. It is clear he wants to be PM and will do what is needed to achieve it. The accusation remember involved changing the Wiki entries for Conservative rivals.
Fiish - you have plummeted new depths in your defence of Mr Shapps/Green/theothernameheused. Any good points you make, are for me ruined by your need to slavishly follow Conservative Central Office dictate.
Sometimes less is more (comment wise).
I guess you missed my post lambasting the Tory housing policy. The rest of your post and the posts of the Miliband fan club above are largely invalid or without merit.
I voted labour all my life up until the last election, lies and broken promises won't change that, labour are not in favour of small business and we will be screwed economically if they get in.
Comments
Good grief, the mental gymnastics some people go through in order to ignore facts beggars belief. The fact is the events listed in the articles I have posted are falsifiable i.e. if it is untrue and the events did not actually take place then there is something that can prove it. Instead of denying it, why not cite your proof?
This happened a long time (comparatively) ago but the damage was severe, long lasting and remains to this day; whole towns and villages without work, youngsters having to travel or move to the big cities to find a decent job, grown men who have lost their industrial/ manufacturing/ mining/ physical employment, their pride gone, and now have to work stacking shelves or cleaning up in fast food joints, IF they can find a job of any kind. Many say 'feck it' and decide to live on benefits which the tories would love to cut to the bone. The working peoples' social structure, a hangover from the Industrial Revolution when GB's fortune was 'norvern' manufactured totally demolished .. THIS is why 'working class norveners' will neither trust nor vote for the tories. Many will not vote labour either, but Lab is the lesser of two 'evils'
UKIP will get a lot of votes in the 'norv' but not many seats. This makes the election outcome uncertain, will Labour or the tories sneak in under the radar and be forced into another coalition. If Labour goes into a coalition with the SNP, expect metaphorical bloodshed and a right wing working man's 'revolution' in 'the norv'
Just selected one of the articles you linked and I have highlighted the spin from the verifiable facts and it is clearly mostly spin.
It’s time to stop trying to fix Ed Miliband. Ever since he was elected, supporters, colleagues, commentators and even some enemies have attempted to knock the Labour leader into shape: he should be radical; he should be pragmatic; he should be like Blair; he should be true to himself.
At the heart of this process was a belief that, sooner or later, Miliband would come good. It would take time, but eventually this ugly duckling would transform into a swan. “Give it a year,” we were told. Then two, then three. “Wait till people get to know him,” his allies said. People got to know him – and the more they saw of him, the less they liked. There were promises that Miliband would seize the agenda, catch the public mood, drag the political centre to the Left. Instead, he squandered the gift that was the Tory annus horribilis of 2012, handed the mantle of opposition leader to Nigel Farage, and watched impotently as the public mood shifted decisively to the Right. It is time to face facts: Miliband is not coming good. There will be no Clause Four moment.
And yet, two weeks ago, I thought I was witnessing one. There was a flurry of dramatic announcements, including a pledge to match Tory spending limits, a welfare cap and the dropping of Labour’s long-standing commitment to universality in the benefits system. Yesterday saw another major intervention, as the party pledged to extend academy independence to other state schools.
But then I realised that, amid all the excitement, something was missing: the leader of the Labour Party. Ed Balls was deployed on spending and universality, Stephen Twigg, the shadow education secretary, on education. Various shadowy “Labour sources” trailed the policy shifts on child benefit and the welfare cap. Miliband himself appeared once – to announce that the cap on welfare would not actually involve a reduction in anyone’s benefits – then disappeared again.
For Labour, the policy changes we have seen over the past few weeks mark a significant political advance. But for Miliband, they represent a comprehensive retreat. Everything of significance he has done or said since becoming leader has been shown to be wrong. He told the shadow cabinet in December that the Tories had made a major strategic blunder on welfare, and he intended to fight it. Then came the Mick Philpott affair, the ensuing public backlash, and Miliband found himself utterly routed on the issue. The white flag of surrender, in the form of Labour’s own welfare cap, was duly hoisted.
The Labour leader had also claimed that the public mood had shifted decisively against austerity, and the Coalition’s deficit reduction strategy. Yet despite the worst economic slump for over a century, the Conservatives continued to out-poll Labour on economic competence. Once again, the white flag had to be raised, this time in the form of a commitment to stick to Tory spending limits.
In one of his first decisions after taking the top job, Miliband announced he would oppose Government cuts to child benefit. Asked if millionaires should still receive the payment, he claimed: “I’m in favour of that, yes, and I’m in favour of it because it’s a cornerstone of our system to have universal benefits.” Then, the predicted middle-class backlash against the cut failed to materialise – up went the white flag for a third time.
If Miliband was smart, he would have spent the past fortnight making a virtue out of necessity. He would have taken clear ownership of these significant U-turns, signalled a major change of direction for his party and framed the whole thing as a bold rebranding of Labour in the run-up to 2015. But he is not smart, so he did none of those things. He attempted to minimise his personal exposure, by allowing others to take the lead on the announcements. He tried to downplay their significance. Worst of all, he tried to give an impression to his own party that he was reluctantly acceding to this change of stance, and that his instincts lay in a different ideological direction.
Which, to be fair, they do. Miliband hasn’t just been wrong on almost every major area of policy: his entire political world view has been shown to be bankrupt. When the Occupy movement was camped outside St Paul’s Cathedral, he told aides that this heralded a revolution in the way British politics would be conducted. Indeed, such was his belief in the power of this new approach that there were plans for him to go down and publicly align himself with the protesters.
He was convinced the financial crisis of 2008 would give birth to a new radicalism. Not in a million years did it occur to him that the chill, uncertain winds of austerity would create a new conservatism.
None of this in itself ensures Miliband’s defeat at the next election. There are examples of critically flawed politicians who still managed to secure the ultimate prize: Harold Wilson in his second term, John Major, Gordon Brown.
But it’s time to drop the pretence. Labour may scrape home in 2015, but it will be despite its leader, not because of him. There is no “new” Ed Miliband waiting to emerge from the shadows. It is not a question of more time, or more repositioning, or more flesh on the bones of Labour’s skeletal political prospectus. The real Labour leader is already standing up, and he has been for the past three years. Ed Miliband is broken. Nothing can fix him now.
*Evidence provided elsewhere and I can't be arsed to look it up.
Wow you have got me there. Nothing like unbiased incontrovertible proof to win an argument.
And of course this "article" is nothing like unbiased incontrovertible proof.
elitebusinessmagazine.co.uk/people/item/tories-win-over-delegation-of-small-business-entrepreneurs
blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2014/01/ten-ways-the-tories-have-helped-small-businesses/
bmmagazine.co.uk/election/the-tories-are-cleaning-up-tax-avoidance-whilst-helping-startups-smes-grow/
dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1334888/How-1-100-businesses-collapse-day-For-time-small-firms-bust-set-up.html
I don't think the Chairman of any political party is stupid enough to edit their own Wikipedia entry from their own office, especially weeks before an election. As Shapps has been stung on this before, he's definitely smart enough to know not to do this.
Sometimes less is more (comment wise).