Putting aside the emotional impact of seeing his father’s name dragged through the mud, politically I think this will work in Ed’s favour – conservative conference messages aren’t gaining any traction as long as this is across the press.

DezB – Member

I was absolutely fascinated by the bumbling, incoherant idiot Ed became when trying to defend his dad on the news.
“i’ll use my platform as, as a… son..”. what? what a useless dork.

I noticed that he appeared to be struggling expressing himself too, but I came to a rather different conclusion.

I got the impression that he was just getting a little emotional, which for me doesn’t automatically mean that the person is a useless dork or an incoherent idiot.

Specially when they are in the process of defending a deceased parent from nasty unfounded lies.

alistair campbell is tearing the poor daily mail dep ed a new one on newsnight right now

He’s quite cross isn’t he? Refreshing to see that at least.

Daily Mail is the true poison in British life

Supreme annihilation of the Daily Mail journo by Alistair Campbell. I think the Tory party must be hating all this as its stealing all the limelight from their conference announcements, undermining one of its key media supporters, and helping Miliband’s public profile – a triple whammy 😀

Loving the telegraph response, very well played.

Yep the Telegraph said all that needed to be said with that.

enfht – Member
The elephant in the room is that the Labour leader’s Dad was a vocal Far Left extremist. Maybe a good start would be for milliband to distance himself from Marxist doctrine..

Mate..I think he did that quite convincingly when he joined New Labour, that makes him centre right, probably more right wing than Ken Clarke

I think the Daily Telegraph might be very wisely showing any potentially disillusioned Daily Mail readers that there is an alternative to the gutter.

you can see malcolm tucker vs the daily mail here

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24361040
(takes a while to get going)

heres a highlighted bit
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrMQTgaHJ-U[/video]

which for me doesn’t automatically mean that the person is a useless dork or an incoherent idiot.

It did for me. If there was a time he needed to express himself clearly, I thought it should be then. Although I think he’s a dork anyway.

dont speak ill of your next pm DezB!, like most people I thought he came accross quite well

ironically the daily mail has gifted Ed another popularity boost

hes now the man who stood up against; the Daily mail over his father, Murdoch over press regulation, Hague and Cameron over Syria, The Unions over funding and the Utilities companies

It did for me.

I could see that, the clue was in you posting : “the bumbling, incoherant idiot” and “what a useless dork”.

.

Although I think he’s a dork anyway.

And that there probably goes to the very heart of the issue, ie, you don’t like Miliband anyway, and like the Daily Mail you want to attack him by using the furore which the lies about his father caused.

It was too good an opportunity for you to miss I suspect.

I saw this on the news yesterday and thought WHAT THE ****.

Even IF his Dad didn’t like Britain whats that got to do with his son?

My Dad was his own man and boy I’m nothing like him. Idiots.

It was too good an opportunity for you to miss I suspect.

Yeah, that was it 🙄

Given the track record of the Tories ‘Electoral Guru’ Lynton Crosby, I wouldn’t be remotely surprised to find his nasty, grubby fingerprints all over this ‘story’.

I doubt its panning out as they’d have hoped

Yeah, that was it

Yep, your “I think he’s a dork anyway” claim shows that it wasn’t his performance yesterday which led you to your conclusion.

binners – Member
Given the track record of the Tories ‘Electoral Guru’ Lynton Crosby, I wouldn’t be remotely surprised to find his nasty, grubby fingerprints all over this ‘story’.

I doubt its panning out as they’d have hoped

Torys like Gove refusing to condem the hatchet job only diminish their standing while raising Ed’s

I wonder about the thought processes going on inside the ‘mind’ of whoever approve the publication of the article. Did they really think that smearing Miliband’s father would somehow reflect badly on his son? There must be some warped logic going on there…

So now we have the hat trick of conference spoilers – Cable, McBride and The Wail (Bloom if you are being generous). Must make the planners mad when their work gets derailed and the headlines grabbed.

It will be interesting to watch Cameron is afternoon. Milliband has re-defined the battle ground and held his first service game comfortably. Cameron has to respond quickly with a few aces while the Wail has soaked his balls!!!!

AC makes some decent points on Newsnight but hard to take any bully/coward stuff from him. Lovely when the wail bloke effectively said that he was describing himself (good point) and AC replied, “I am not a coward.!”….brilliant!

Torys like Gove refusing to condem the hatchet job only diminish their standing while raising Ed’s

Have any actually came out and condemned it?

It really is an absolutely hateful piece. The depths to which the Mail will sink continues to amaze me.

I would have thought any decent human being would condemn it without a second thought

These are tories though, not decent human beings.

I think what this whole thing clearly shows is how rattled the Tories/Right wing press were by Milliband having a surprisingly well-received conference speech, and striking a chord with a lot of people.

So rather than just being able to mock him for being weak/Wallace etc, as previously, they’ve now moved into the thoroughly nasty, gutter-level attack mode they specialise in (as it comes so naturally to the vile, spiteful scumbags).

Unfortunately this is merely firing the starting gun in what will be a 20 month campaign of out and out nastiness from that Tories, and the moral-vacuum their friends in the press operate in. Which hopefully will expose th lie to anyone who fell for Daves “Detoxification of the Tory Brand”. They clearly haven’t thought that through, as they judge everyone else by their own warped ‘morals’. But again, its their default position when not getting everything their own way. They can’t help themselves

I got the impression that he was just getting a little emotional, which for me doesn’t automatically mean that the person is a useless dork or an incoherent idiot.

I agree. He just came across as someone who was upset that his dad had been slagged off in public. As we all would be.

It will be interesting to watch Cameron is afternoon.

the David “gordon gekko” Cameron greed is good speech.

And the ironic thing is that they really don’t need to stoop so low in order to eviscerate ‘labour’s strategy… In fact if they only wait long enough ‘Labour’ will self-destruct without any help.

I think the torys reluctance to condemn the mail on this, especially gove and hunt is partly because they dont want it used to further the press regulation argument (they are both vocal supporters of self regulation/friends of murdoch)
but mostly its about fear of the daily mail, as much as most people on stw are shocked by the rag, its still incredibly powerful and popular.

Daily Mail hates everyone in Britain

The Daily Mash sums it all up very well, as usual. 🙂

kimbers – Member

Torys like Gove refusing to condem the hatchet job only diminish their standing while raising Ed’s

I think you underestimate how diminished Gove’s standing already is, when everyone in the country wants to punch you on the nose, what have you got to lose?

DezB – Member
“i’ll use my platform as, as a… son..”. what? what a useless dork.

Why did you not finish the quote? Cheap.

Gove was funny on QT last week as he seems to be trying out a new persona. He was polite and complementary about D Alexander especially and there was the great bit when Will Self pulled him up on it. But when pressed, he v quickly reverted to type. The media coaching clearly requires a lot more work!

Kimbers, v true it is frightening to think that the Wail remains the most widely read news website – althought that is a mis-misnomer – and has considerable power. This is where I think it is easy for “the freedom of the press” to slip easily into the “tyranny of a few/minority.” And we have seen all the consequences very clearly.

I can’t face looking at the website today. Have they continued the story?

the Wail remains the most widely read news website

It was knocked into second place earlier this year by the Guardian, have they regained first place ?

Guardian.co.uk most read newspaper site in UK in March

Gove was funny on QT last week as he seems to be trying out a new persona. He was polite and complementary about D Alexander especially and there was the great bit when Will Self pulled him up on it. But when pressed, he v quickly reverted to type. The media coaching clearly requires a lot more work!

Apparently he was under threat of death from Dave and Malcolm Tucker Lynton Crosby ‘not to come across like the spokesman for Centrica’, which given the main talking point, gave him very little room for maneuver. Until his natural instincts for a ruck took over, of course

Why did you not finish the quote? Cheap.

My sole purpose was to attack Miliband. Don’t know why I didn’t start a new thread about it, to be honest.

I had missed that Ernie – that’s (some) relief! I wonder if TG will introduce subscriptions soon?

Binners – it was all very odd with Gove. Self came over as a bit of a **** as well. Of the panel, I thought Alexander did the best job – calm, considered, handled the difficult stuff (esp re Milliband – ed and dave) well etc.

Personal attacks on his dad aside, Milliband must be enjoying his turn of fortune.

THM – Will Self is a pompous, self-regarding arse! Just not quite as much of a pompous, self-regarding arse as Gove 😉

And you’re right. Milliband is indeed having a very good week. Its hard to see how Dave’s going to address the issues he raised (which he has too) without appearing that he’s just defending the narrow corporate interests who fund his party.

Hang on a minute… isn’t that what the labour party is meant to be doing? Who’d have thunk it eh?

As I said before, I think Milliband’s tactics were good but the policy recommendations pretty weak. But they have worked. I think CMD should seek to clearly differentiate himself, not move to cover the same ground. Osborne tried that with the (subtle?) ‘we are not out of the woods yet’ argument. But FWIW, I do hope that Cameron sets out a very clear pro-business agenda. While he is not correct in saying that “its not government that creates jobs, its businesses”, his sentiments are correct IMO as is the idea that “profit, wealth creation, tax cuts and enterprise” are not in themselves bad words. There is a fine line between addressing income inequality (even though it is currently narrowing 😉 ) and simply business bashing – Milliband is walking a fine line here but succeeding. CMD needs to do likewise.

I think it will be quite refreshing to see Labour and the Tories differentiating themselves more and standing up for the interests that they are meant to represent. I see no harm in that, indeed, on the contrary I think that it should be encouraged.

But if the budget surplus idea gets pushed again – I will find it interesting that the Tories will ultimately prove closer to Keynesian economics than Labour.

CMD wore “the club tie” on Andrew Marr- will he be so bold as to do so again!?!

Labour seems, ironically, to have learned from Dave. They’re facing an unpopular government, same as he was (though maybe not quite as unpoular as Comrade Gordon).

Dave went into the last election with virtually no firm policies. Yes, he made vague, nondescript noises about certain populist things, but policy commitments? Detail? ….erm… no.

Milliband has made only one commitment that I can see. The rest is a vague (undeliverable) wish-list. But its forced Dave into a corner he clearly doesn’t want to be in. Difficult to do your (totally unconvincing, at best) man-of-the-people shtick when you’ve got your corporate backers to keep happy, and well over half your parties funding is coming from hedge funds and private equity

I bet there’s been some late nights re-writing speeches in the last week!

Anyway.. back to the topic… I reckon the Mail will have inadvertently ended up doing Ed a favour here. I don’t think many people other than Paul Dacre will consider having a go at someones dead father to be fair game

According to the DM list I hate Britain,

Disapprove of the royal family – check
Don’t like the church – check
Don’t like some other large institutions (posh schools for example) – check
Served in the armed forces – check

Should i hide from the rabid right wing?