Is Ed Miliband living on borrowed time?

First topic message reminder :

Tonight’s YouGov poll for the Sun has topline figures of CON 41%, LAB 39%, LDEM 10%, Others 10%. This is the first time that YouGov have shown a Conservative lead since December 2010. It certainly looks as though the Conservatives have recieved a boost from David Cameron’s veto at the European summit. There is also a new ComRes poll out tonight for the Independent which has topline figures of CON 38%(+1), LAB 38%(-1), LDEM 12%(+2) – also showing the two main parties effectively neck-and-neck. How is it that the tories can be level or ahead in the polls when they are having to make some very difficult and painfull decisions to try and bring down the deficit, the umemployment figures are the worst for 17 years. We have had strikes, pension reforms, VAT rises and the veto in Europe etc.......

It looks like Ed Millaband is not liked or trusted by many of the elecorate. In my opinion he looks weak, sounds weak and has no policies to speak of....Everytime he tries to get the better of Cameron in PMQ'S he ends looking like a fool with Cameron destroying him. Ed Balls is no better...he comes across as an odious man with no substance, who would probably stab his own wife in the back if it meant he gained more power.

Labour missed a trick in not voting in Eds brother David into the leadership role. David would have given Cameron a better run for his money and I believe he is a better politician than Ed too. With the two Eds at the helm I believe Labour are not a viable opposition right now and one or both could be dispatched by the party sooner rather than later

It's a little selfish of us to think this must be one of the worst periods of human history in Britain simply because one of the horses in the electoral race seems to have gone lame.

People really had something to complain about when The Black Death struck in the 14th.C., when there was a Civil War that deposed King Charles 1, when Napoleon threatened our very existence, likewise two World Wars a century afterwards.

During the first five hundred years of those events, the common man didn't even have a vote.

I tend to think its the right wing media that are trying to blacken Ed Milibands name all because they know HE WILL WIN the general election in May 2015. They will try anything to get rid of Ed, if Ed wins all the Tories underhand contracts ands jobs for the boys would be EXPOSED OW.

A 'plot' against Ed Miliband by nameless Labour MPs is a very useful distraction from Cameron's latest woes. He's currently making a fool of himself with the EU yet again, on Monday he will face a backbench revolt over the European Arrest Warrant, and in under a fortnight he will probably be humiliated by UKIP in Rochester and Strood.

There are MPs in all parties who would like a change of leader, often because they've either been demoted or passed over for promotion, or maybe because they're on a different wing of the party. I'm quite sure there are Tories ready to see the back of Cameron and Lib Dems itching to ditch Clegg, but the media isn't interested in them.

If Ed Miliband is such a useless nonentity, why is the right-wing press so desperate to get rid of him? Wouldn't it serve their interests better to leave him in place?

Where's Lance-Corporal Jones now that we need a couple of encouraging words?

As a Labour cllr, I am disgusted that a couple of MPs are causing this media storm - they don't even have the guts to identify themselves.
I, along with countless others are working our socks off campaigning to get Labour cllrs and PPCs elected - these trouble-makers should be ashamed of themselves!

Unhappy with Ed Miliband?  Just examine the alternatives:

(a) David Cameron?  Five more years!  Five more years!  IDS is safe in our hands.  Five more years!

(b) Clegg?  Just keep me in Government.  I'll agree to anything.

c)  Farage?  Policies?  What policies?  I just want to be elected to power. POWER!

(d) Simply read your Daily Mail if you want to know about the looney Left-wing!

The Daily Mail OW? WOULD not even cut it into little squares and thread it with string to hang behind the door in the little room.

I wouldn't wrap my fish n chips in the Daily Mail!

At least it is better than what I would do with it Sharon

Sharon wrote:As a Labour cllr, I am disgusted that a couple of MPs are causing this media storm - they don't even have the guts to identify themselves.  
I, along with countless others are working our socks off campaigning to get Labour cllrs and PPCs elected - these trouble-makers should be ashamed of themselves!

What I would say to your question Sharon is; this is a smear campaign by Cameron and his cronies they will do anything to get back into power in 2015, knowing that for all Ed is low in the polls the Labour party is not and he knows that Labour WILL WIN the G.E in May 2015. If you take a look at where the smears are coming from Andrew O'Neil (Tory thru & thru) and the right wing meedia there is no levels they will stoop to to blacken Ed and the Labour party.

Are they shouting loud enough Phil except on here?

Seven weeks before the 1945 election, Clement Attlee, not the most charismatic of politicians, received a letter from Harold Laski, the Labour Party chairman, telling him that his leadership was "a grave handicap to the hopes of victory". Labour won by a landslide.

http://www.krizma-ebooks.com/books/%20The%20Myth%20of%20the%20Strong%20Leader.pdf

One of the biggest labour victories if my reading is correct Ivan.

A very fair point Red

@ Stu

stu. The biggest Labour majorities were 179 in 1997, 167 in 2001 and 146 in 1945. Thatcher had the biggest Tory majority in modern times - 144 in 1983.

Here's a blog which any of our members who share 'The Daily Mail' view of Ed Miliband might like to read:-

http://kittysjones.wordpress.com/2014/11/08/miliband-is-an-excellent-leader-and-heres-why/  

Anyone with any thoughts about 'The Daily Mail' might like to visit this thread:-

https://cuttingedge2.forumotion.co.uk/t915-should-the-daily-mail-be-banned-under-the-obscene-publications-act

We still have hope yet Sharon love, never actually give up until the counting is done.
Was right then Ivan regarding it being one of our biggest majorities?

The relevant issues are these :

Is Ed Miliband a jolly good chap? Probably.

Would he make a good PM? Possibly.

Is he sufficiently effective as Leader of the Opposition? No.

Will he convince the public sufficiently to win the 2015 General Election? No.

And the latter is all that counts since, if he loses, his political career will be over and the dispossessed of the country will suffer horribly for his failure to unseat Cameron - a Prime Minister who should have been as easy to beat as Pease Pottage FC playing with nine men against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge ....

I know Phil, I have got the drinks in to drown my sorrows already, and slowly practicing as not drinking for years do not want to get peed to quick.

When there's only one decent shop in town, that's where you go for your groceries.

(Old saying that I've just made up.)

Then it is a new saying that you have just made up OW.

stuart torr wrote:I know Phil, I have got the drinks in to drown my sorrows already, and slowly practicing as not drinking for years do not want to get peed to quick.

You will need more than  drinks stuart if the Tories are back in power more so with Ukip in coalition, if that happens THERE WILL BE a REVOLUTION in the UK    No matter what anybody says with Osborne promising another £2billion to come out of public services and perhaps a French style one along with the GUILLOTINE.

Redflag. It's worse than that - Osborne is planning another £25 billion of savings, £13 billion of which would come from further cuts to public spending.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/georgeosborne/11128133/George-Osborne-Freeze-benefits-to-make-Britain-fairer.html

If major damage is not to be done to the hopes of Labour MPs at the next election, Ed Miliband needs to go NOW.

He is a dead man walking and cannot now recover either his reputation or authority. To give his successor the best chance of keeping the Labour vote as stable as possible, he needs to be bold and hand over to allow a decent period for the Party to recover at least some composure.

Will he do so? History suggests he will dither and dally and fail to make an effective decision. How much MORE damage does he intend to do to his colleagues and his party?

One, Phil he will stay til after the Election.
Ivan I expect those cuts will come from benefits of the unemployed and disabled.

Abraham Lincoln, in reply to a Delegation from the National Union League who were urging him to be their presidential candidate in 1864 said, "An old Dutch farmer remarked to a companion once that it was not best to swap horses when crossing streams."

Good luck to Labour with that advice from the old Dutch farmer, his companion and Abe, then! Ed must be choosing the curtains for Number 10 as we speak...

What colour do you think he will pick then Phil?

I think a subtle shade of 'lacklustre lemon' might be on the cards, and that the drapes will be all too transparently ineffectual...

I was thinking a pale green actually Phil, well if he gets in we can have a bet see whose right or left on the curtains.

Panic over the Labour leadership serves no purpose – stop it, now

From an article by Polly Toynbee:-

"Only one thing matters, more than ever before, and that’s preventing a Tory victory. Never mind Labour MPs hanging on to their seats, nor even the survival of the Labour Party itself. Those are trivial compared with the prospect of a Cameron government very likely to take Britain out of Europe and lose Scotland from the union. Cameron puts holding on to power above standing up to the forces in his party and UKIP propelling him to a Brexit that would send the country into a downward spiral, as manufacturers and financial services depart.

What future would there be, except as a disreputable offshore tax haven? The little England fantasy, that is never explicated, will evaporate as the country turns in on itself, nastier and more xenophobic. Labour has never had a stronger case that it alone genuinely stands up for British business. The CBI may hate higher top-rate tax – but it needs to know that it’s the Conservatives who risk shipwrecking the economy, permanently.

For all the leader’s low personal ratings, there remains every chance Labour can win, with Sunday’s five-point lead in Survation and three-point lead in Opinium. What is needed is a united team with a coherent message to get its policies across: these are overwhelmingly popular, from raising the top rate of tax to repealing the NHS act, from a bank bonus tax to freezing energy bills while splitting up energy cartels, cutting small business tax, cutting tuition fees, ending the bedroom tax, building a million homes – and staying in Europe."

For the whole article:-
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/09/panic-labour-leadership-ed-miliband

http://notesbrokensociety.wordpress.com/2014/11/09/backing-ed/#  - hope this may be the link I tried to post earlier - and. yes, the link works this time.

Polly's right - we need to crack on and get he Tories out - talking down Ed Milliband may just become a self-fulfilling prophecy

(I think the clothing ads at the end may be caused by me in my endless search for the right outfit - sorry)

One of our newer members, ImpeccablePeccadillo, who calls herself @CharlieWoof81 on Twitter, was one of two people responsible for the 'we back Ed' campaign which has so far resulted in over 50,000 tweets in little more than 24 hours. The full story is here:-

Twitter attempt to show support for embattled Ed Miliband is trending

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/nov/09/ed-miliband-twitter-mission-show-support-trending

Phil. Nice of you to provoke some discussion……  

I’m probably going bonkers, but in reply I’ll set myself three questions and then try to answer them.

1. Is Ed Miliband’s resignation desirable?

Murdoch and ‘The Daily Mail’ hate Ed Miliband, probably because of Leveson and because he has plans to restrict the percentage of the media which any one corporation can own. They stoop low enough to smear his dead father, make an issue of him eating a bacon sandwich, lie about his contribution to a beggar and either invent or take out of context remarks made by his shadow education secretary. If that scum is so desperate to get rid of Ed Miliband, I can’t think of a better reason for him to stay. And if they did draw blood, who is to say they won’t try a character assassination of the next leader?

When Labour goes into opposition, it usually tears itself apart as left and right fight for the soul of the party. That hasn’t happened during the last four years and the party has stayed united. The remaining Blairites have co-existed alongside those of a slightly more left-wing disposition. And for about three years, Labour has been ahead in the polls, never by as much as we might like, but always on course for an outright election victory, at least until the Scottish referendum. That was a lose-lose situation for any Labour leader. A ‘Yes’ vote would have drastically reduced the number of Labour MPs anyway, and a ‘No’ vote looks as if it might have had an even worse result: instead of there being no Scottish MPs at Westminster, there could now be potentially dozens of hostile ones! But what could any Labour leader do? The Labour Party is a unionist party, its first MP was a Scot called Keir Hardie, and its most recent PM was also a Scot. It was on the same side as the Tories in the referendum, and such association is toxic for anyone in Scotland.

Some have argued here and elsewhere that Ed Miliband appears to be doing next to nothing as Labour leader. I’ve replied that just because he isn’t often invited to appear on the television, and because the Tory press is only interested in smears and negative stories about him, it doesn’t mean that he hasn’t been active. He’s met thousands of voters in meetings and walkabouts; all of that would be wasted if another person becomes leader.

First Ed Miliband was criticised for not having any policies, even though Cameron didn’t reveal what he was going to do – especially with the NHS and VAT - until after he crawled into power with the help of Clegg. Now Ed has possibly more policies than any previous opposition leader, but he still gets attacked.

The three most recent opinion polls show Labour leads of between 1% and 5%. Do parties usually sack their leaders when they are ahead?    

My answer to this question is No.

2. Is Ed Miliband’s resignation feasible?

When Labour elected Ed Miliband in 2010, the whole cumbersome process took four months. That allowed the Tories plenty of time to embed in the nation’s psyche the whopping lie that Labour was responsible for all the effects of the global credit crunch on the UK. We’ve now less than six months to go to the next general election and to waste four months on a leadership campaign would be suicidal.

The only realistic way that Ed Miliband could be replaced now is if there was an uncontested election. It was how both Michael Howard and Gordon Brown came to be leaders of their respective parties. That’s hardly a democratic way of choosing a leader, and there’s no guarantee that a candidate could be found who would be acceptable to everyone. The name of former home secretary Alan Johnson has been mentioned, but he’s categorically ruled himself out of contention. (You may recall he left frontline politics in 2011 when his wife had an affair with his bodyguard.)

My answer to this question is No.

3. Would Ed Miliband’s resignation improve Labour’s chances?

A new leader often gives a party a ‘bounce’, but that may not last long. The success or otherwise of replacing Ed Miliband would obviously depend on who took over. Only three names have been mentioned – Alan Johnson, Yvette Cooper or Andy Burnham. How would the Tory-dominated media react to one of those?

Well Alan Johnson is 64, so he would no doubt be dubbed too old, as Menzies Campbell was when he was leader of the Lib Dems. I can imagine the cartoons of him sitting by the fire with a granny shawl over his lap. Johnson has a working class background and would probably be portrayed as thick; he left school at 15, worked as a shelf-stacker in Tesco and then as a postman. I’m sure ‘The Daily Mail’ would also make plenty out of his flirtation with the Communist Party in his younger days.

If Ed Miliband can be attacked because of his late father, Yvette Cooper would certainly be under fire because she is married to Ed Balls. Tories and their media poodles curiously like to put some of the blame on him for the global credit crunch, even though he was the education secretary between 2007 and 2010. Cooper’s elevation could also provide scope for some misogyny from Cameron and his chums.

The Tories have already tried to blame Andy Burnham for the Mid Staffs hospital scandal, a story which has been much exaggerated, as skwalker1964 painstakingly explained on another thread:-

https://cuttingedge2.forumotion.co.uk/t779-mid-stafford-hospital-report

I suppose the point I’m trying to make is that it doesn’t matter who leads the Labour Party, they are guaranteed to be given a rough ride and very little positive coverage by the Tory-dominated media. The Twitter 'we back Ed' campaign demonstrated that thousands of people like Ed Miliband, some of whom said they wouldn't vote at all if he was replaced.

My answer to this question is No.

Well said, Ivan - replacing Milliband at this point would be clearly bonkers and to my mind anyone who pretends to think this is an option, obviously wants another four years of Tory misrule.

As replacing him at this stage is not an option unless you want more of the same, listening to and repeating the various slurs of the right wing press is at best foolish and counter-productive.
also, speaking personally, I want to see the man in number 10 - he seems to me to have the right policies and ideas for our times and may well be able to halt the moral decay that has left so many in England in a condition of destitution.

" ... replacing Milliband at this point would be clearly bonkers and to my mind anyone who pretends to think this is an option, obviously wants another four years of Tory misrule"

That'll be me, then!

Not sure what the value is of portraying those who dare to raise legitimate concerns about the paucity of the Opposition as suddenly becoming Tory loyalists and 'clearly bonkers' , but I guess that is the nature of blind adherence to a political cause.

Good luck with your quest.

Extremely well said Ivan, of course we want Labour as the next party to govern us, no doubts in our hearts for that, it is our head that is telling us different that may happen that is all.

Is David Cameron living on borrowed time?

Both Cameron and Osborne showed themselves to be bare-faced liars last week with their ‘smoke and mirrors’ nonsense over the £1.7 billion EU surcharge which will effectively be paid in full. I notice that no mention was made of the £2 billion structural funding for Wales, no doubt because Tory backbenchers might not approve if anything good is said about the EU:-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-29827221

Despite all his bluster, the other EU leaders have told Cameron that the free movement of people is sacrosanct. This morning the CBI warned him that both immigration and the EU are good for business and a referendum on the EU would create uncertainty. Tonight there will be a revolt over the European Arrest Warrant by Tory backbench headbangers who hate anything with the word ‘European’ in the title; they are prepared to risk making the UK a haven for criminals seeking to avoid repatriation. Next week, the Tories are likely to be trounced in Rochester and Strood by another bunch of malevolent nutcases.

Which party leader is in trouble? Isn’t it so transparent of the Tory press to invent a crisis for Ed Miliband from a few off-the-cuff remarks, just to divert attention from Cameron’s meltdown?

Plot against Ed Miliband distracts from Tory turmoil:-

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/2014/nov/10/ed-miliband-plot-labour-leadership-conservative-party

In May (if Cameron survives that long), voters will have a clear choice:-


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B2E06LlIMAAPMTd.png

Ivan boss how many more times must we salute you for your posts, and see how you support the labour party, and hate Cameron so much you have a photograph of him on your dartboard.

I have just re-read this extract from Shakespeare's 1602 "Hamlet", in which the complex plotting seems to be a premonition of British politics in 2014:

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

--From Hamlet (III, ii, 239)

Queen Gertrude speaks these famous words to her son, Prince Hamlet, while watching a play at court. Gertrude does not realize that Hamlet has staged this play to trap her and her new husband, King Claudius, whom Hamlet suspects of having murdered his father. She also does not realize that the lady who "doth protest too much" is actually herself, as the Player King and Queen represent King Hamlet and Queen Gertrude. The former will be poisoned (in this play within the play) by the king's brother, as in reality (Hamlet suspects) Claudius killed King Hamlet. Gertrude's statement is in response to the play-Queen's repetitive statements of loyalty to and love of her first husband.