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Ed Miliband's speech: The day Labour died
The utter shallowness of Ed Miliband's speech at Labour's Party Conference was something to behold, writes our UK politics editor Harry Cole.
The 27th of September 2011 will go down in history as the day Ed Miliband, leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition, blew any slim chance of ousting and then replacing David Cameron as Prime Minister.
This time last year, the Tories desperately painted Ed as “Red Ed”: in the pockets of the unions and to the left of his older, wiser, brother.
This year Ed lived up to that description; any argument that the tag is unfair was blown out of the water in Tuesday's “landmark speech” to the Labour Party’s annual conference.
Ed screamed that he was “pro-business, pro-business”, and, again, “pro-business”. And while this may look and sound good on a TV sound-bite, the Labour leader hardly backed it up with all the rest of what he was saying.
Instead, he advocated state intervention into the economy on a vast scale.
He has a half-baked idea that there could be a two tiered, “moral” tax system: as absurd in theory as it is impossible to implement in practice.
He also promised that “a new Labour government would only spend what it could afford”, which sounds dangerously like a pledge to scrap borrowing. Cows will sooner lay eggs.
While he pretended to be pro-business, his words would have gone down like a cup of cold sick with the industries that he professes to be fighting for.
Does a Turkey vote for Christmas? And without the support of the business world, from small to medium size employers, he will not win the country.
On a personal level, he tried to brand himself as the outsider who can fix the system.
You must wonder at what point during his meteoric rise up the greasy pole, that started with dining with and working for far-Left ideologue Tony Benn in his youth, to his days studying the oh so clichéd discipline of Politics, Philosophy and Economics (PPE) at Oxford, and then working as a Special Advisor to Gordon Brown, and then an MP, that he came up with that idea.
He should forget what Tony Benn taught him and listen to Abraham Lincoln instead: “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”
The notion that Ed Miliband is some sort of political outsider is laughable.
He was in Brown’s bunker in the darkest days, and let’s not forget that the mess we’re in now is to a very significant degree the result of Gordon Brown’s appalling premiership.
But let’s be fair, In terms of style he has clearly had voice coaching since last year and:
It would seem.
Ed Miliband.
Has Joined.
That short.
Sentences.
Club.
This was all far worse than what former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith faced in 2003 with the “quiet man is turning up the volume” speech. Because, instead of reaching for the nearest bucket, the hall lapped it all up.
Ed has secured his position with his party at a cost. Don’t expect business donors to form an orderly queue.
The delegates seemed genuinely fired up by the speech, blind to the cliff that Miliband is set to drive them off.
Social Democracy failed in this country and Ed Miliband is a fool if he thinks that tacking to the left will solve our problems.
As the markets continue to plunge and the euro teeters on the edge, Labour thinks that rallying around the NHS and the “spirit of Britain” will be enough to fix our woes.
Will the last one to leave the reality-based community please turn out the lights?
Harry Cole is the UK Political Editor for The Commentator. He tweets at @MrHarryCole and is the News Editor for Guido Fawkes, Britain's leading Westminster politics news site.
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Was the picture of Ed deliberate? I immediately thought of Wallace and Gromit having seen that facial expression. He could star in a remake of "The Wrong Trousers" with a new title of "The Wrong Leader".
Why is this man allowed near jokes in his speeches? His delivery is terrible. It never comes off as intended and always smacks of someone who's desperately trying not to ruin the punch line. Comedy doesn't come naturally to him (neither does leadership, politics, common sense...and so on) so he should just cut it out and save me cringing every time.
'He also promised that “a new Labour government would only spend what it could afford”'
So did Gordon Brown. At first.
John Redwood in a page elsewhere in the Commentator rather disagrees. I tend to agree with his view.
Easy: WRONG Miliband is in office. I much prefer the "...older, wiser brother."
"Edward the Unready" is probably a better appellation than "Red Ed". What kind of party and what kind of Trades Union do we have that Ed gets elected "Leader"!?
I feel sorry for his fellow Labour MPs and his children!
Exactly the same as the European community his response to a disaster is more of the same, but even more left wing. He needs to continue down this avenue, the promised cliff is at the end of it.
Embarrassing speech. Probably written and prompted by Harriet Harman. The Union 'floozy'! How some people follow this 'claptrap' is beyond me!
So how does the priveliged millionaire son of a marxist Professor learn about real life in real Britain? We are utterly bereft of political leaders in the UK now - they are just small time opportunists mangaing the decline. The three main partys have utterly failed us all - yet huge swathes of the electorate will continue voting for the same disease over & over again.
Truth is, it won't matter what he says in opposition. There is a core of Labour support now that sits at around the 35% mark. It's made up of working class communities who have always voted Labour, Immigrants from traditionally socialist countries who lean towards Labour instinctively, Government workers who need a growing state sector to remain in work, and the longer term workless who fear the reduction in welfare that a balanced budget will almost certainly bring.
35% Means no chance of a Conservative Majority . 37% means certain Labour Majority. If Ed Miliband fails to secure No10 - he will go down as the worst leader in Labour history.
WHY all this Banker-Basking when Finance contributes so much to Britain's GDP & tax revenues [9.4% UK Gross Domestic Production by 2006] AND What was Mr Milliband Jnr doing for 13 years from 1997 until May 2010, while his Prime Minister [Mr Brown] was bringing UK Pension-Funds to Insolvency by over-taxing Pensions by at £5/6 billion a year [total £65/78 billion]
"Please sir! It wasn't me, sir! It was the others! They MADE me join in the shop lifting and smashing the windows! Honest, sir."
"Please sir! It wasn't me, sir! It was the others! They MADE me join in the shop lifting and smashing the windows! Honest, sir."
He failed the most basic of all tests when he said that a Labour government would only spend what it could afford. Government has no money of it's own so can't afford anything. The limit is what taxpayers can (and are prepared to) afford. Son of Brown sounds about right.
EM [sadly] hasn't managed to commit electoral suicide just yet. Whilst everything he said was complete and total rubbish, he has a lot of time until the election to try to erase it from history, and we can't take him to pieces on the speech content until he actually comes up with a policy to back it up. Although the policy at the minute seems to be not to ever have one. The left wing will fail as predictably as the sun will set. But sadly his empty words will strike a chord with a lot of people - we need to press him into coming up with some policies.
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Not the speech of a political leader nor of a man on a mission,EMilli is no conviction politician! However great to have it confirmed by Labour hierarchy that Maggie was right to sell Council Houses, it's only Labour and the Champagne socialists that thought it was a bad idea this last 25 years!!