Miliband Quits Frontline Politics

Was him quitting through concern for his brother’s success as Labour leader, or a “toys out of the pram” reaction to being beaten byhis little brother?

I thought this guy was made of sturner stuff, but seems like vanity rules!

Milibastard!

I wouldn’t lose sleep over it if I were you Spongiform.

Milibastard!

Don’t you mean “Milibastards!”

I don’t actually object to him having a tantrum over this.
I imagine they had a conversation way back when, and both agreed to serve in each other’s shadow cabinets, in the event of either one of them making the ascent to power. The difference being that D.Miliband never actually believed for one second that he would be put in such a scenario!

What I do object to (if reports from multiple media sources are to be believed), is his wife throwing a hissyfit on his behalf.
I think they were expecting an annointment a la Brown.

Interesting that both Blair’s favoured appointee (D.Miliband) and Brown’s (Balls) both failed to make the cut.

and Brown’s (Balls) both failed to make the cut.

😆

Hope they both crash and Hillary Benn takes over and gets the environment on the agenda.

spongeblob – committed? should be

as a matter of interest, do you intend ever posting anything that isn’t a complete waste of bandwidth?

😆

Milibastards!

I don’t care really.

Ignore it then Lycra Lout! 😆

you’re an idiot, i understand that much, but why do you just keep posting the same inane pish over and over again?

on reflection, don’t bother, i’ve got more interesting stuff to do – look, that paint there isn’t dry yet

😆 😆 😆

Hope they both crash and Hillary Benn takes over and gets the environment on the agenda.

The condems will have to be spectacularly bad for someone who puts an environmental agenda first to win an election.

So not totally impossible after all.

The condems will have to be spectacularly bad

No need to employ the future tense there. They already are.

No need to employ the future tense there. They already are.

How so? Oh, and just “being evil torries (sic, in re Kimbers)” isn’t a good enough answer!

Well they were spectacularly bad at winning a mandate from the electorate weren’t they? Rather poor considering their whole manifesto was essentially “we’re not Labour”.

Oh, and just “being evil torries” isn’t a good enough answer!

Yes they are.

Ummm…I’ve broken my self-imposed exile from political threads and my old mate flashy’s all over me like a rash 🙂

You know you love it, Darcy, you saucy beast you! 😉

muddydwarf – Member
Well they were spectacularly bad at winning a mandate from the electorate weren’t they? Rather poor considering their whole manifesto was essentially “we’re not Labour”.

Spectacularly bad, but better than anyone else….

Note to self: step away from the thread (after getting flashy’s number) 😀

Your face or mine, Darcy? 😉

Druidh – considering what/who the opposition were then the Tories did indeed fail rather spectacularly. It ‘should’ have been a coronation & given a half-decent opposition party it would have been.
The Conservative Party suffered from an attack of attitude & lost ground accordingly.

How long would they last without their Liberal allies i wonder?

Miliband= knob jockey. Funny also predictive txt changes Miliband to militant…

I see it more as a rat deserting the sinking ship.

The Conservatives will be rubbing their hands with glee as Labour look set to return to the wilderness years of the 80’s with a rise in union power, strikes and a swing to the left.

Trust Labour to have a system that favours the second place candidate! Speaks volumes does it not. Harriot clapping for her new leader, sickening. Career politicians don’t you just hate them. All of them of course just to keep a sense of parity.

we need clear leadership on this thread, maybe from a distant relative of james callaghan. or was it michael foot?

It’s ok I’m here! 😀

What’s going on?

It’s been reported that D has realised that he’ll get loads of crap from the media about being the leader’s defeated older brother and not be allowed to get on with being a politician. Seems reasonable to me.

At the conference they had a camera trained right on his face for the whole of E’s speech to see if he twitched a facial muscle so they could call it a jealous reaction, creating a soap opera out of nothing.

That’d be enough to make me want out to be honest.

Damn these metric politicians…

I find it all rather amusing how much time committed tories are spending on the labour leadership contest. You would think they are running scared so have to resort to scare tactics. Pages and pages in the tory press as well.

Its not a massive swing to the left nor is Milliband the tool of the unions – this is just plain wishful thinking.

Both Millibands are just rather dull clone career politicians.

😆 @ iDave.

That was very good.

Give Ed Miliband a chance. He might be quite good once he clears that nasty head cold which is obviously affecting his nasal passages and power of speech.

Both career politicians, only time will tell what Ed stands for because he hasnt really said anything yet.
Personally I dont think David had much choice, being in cabinet would give the tories and the press a lot to attack labour with if there were any splits in opinion etc.

The Conservatives will be rubbing their hands with glee as Labour look set to return to the wilderness years of the 80’s with a rise in union power, strikes and a swing to the left.

You wish.

What I really don’t understand is why/how Ed got elected to the post in the first instasnce.

The guy has only been a politician since 2005 and hadn’t hasn’t had anything like the kind of senior leadership experience that his brother had as Foreign Secretary. He was energy or environment or some other sideline office beforehand, hardly the material of a potential next PM.

And by god does he lack charisma and presence. I mean I’d rather chew cardboard than listen to him.

David on the otherhand was rightly the obvious choice from the perspective of experience and leadership charisma.

Geetee – it could be that Ed is thus uncontaminated by the Blair / Brown era whereas David was very close to Blair?

How much experience had Cameron?

Clever move. He’ll now sit on the backbenches and wait for the inevitable crisis, when the Labour Pains realise what a dreadful mistake they’ve made and initiate another leadership contest. Then, “Hello, Hello – good to be back…”.

Aha TJ well spotted. Yes Cameron had only been an elected politician for a similar period before he was elected to lead the Tory party. Not sure how long it was but I’ve been told 5 years.

I think the key difference is that Cameron, like him or not, has got bags of charisma, presence and gravitas. To some that comes over as being arrogant, cocky and self assured (PSBesque) but the point is that enough people saw it positively enough to vote for him.

I agree with your point about David being ‘contaminated’ and I think in addition, his (David’s) style of leadership might have been a bit too like Blair’s to make people comfortable. But obviously enough people didn’t have an issue with that because AIUI, he won a clear majority of votes from labour party members and politicians.

This is where I don’t quite understand how the union vote actually works. What is the mechanism TJ, that gives them the right to vote in the first place? I ask because if they aren’t part of the ‘labour party members’ group then what are they?