Is Ed Miliband living on borrowed time?

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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

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.

Phil, I certainly didn't mean any offence to anyone - and sorry if offence was taken.

It seems to me, at this stage, that, although Labour may not be the perfect party, and Milliband may not be the perfect leader, we don't actually have any options left if we're to get rid of the Tories.

Talking down the party or talking down the leader could so easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy - changing the leader at this stage will ensure a Labour defeat almost definitely - so I do get a bit narked about people who seem to want to say the party's doomed unless we ditch the leader - because the more that's said, it seems to me, the less the hard working Labour activists are going to feel the confidence that they need to feel to really fight the election.

Good old Tony eh Ivan. met him a few times when on strike action, always there to support the strikers.

Everything Tony Benn has said is the truth about Ed Miliband, he has know him since he was a little boy as Tony was a good friend of Eds parents, and with true socialist parents I do think all that socialism will have rubbed off on Ed I really think that Ed will surprise people once he is our PM in a nice way.

Hope so Redflag as Tony was a brill guy

Tory secret weapon is Myleene Klass

Pop singer suggests that Mansion Tax will apply to a "granny's garage" in London.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ed-miliband/11238204/Mansion-tax-is-Pure-and-Simple-Ed-Miliband-hits-back-at-Myleene-Klass.html

View the Sky News TV panel show here: http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/myleene-klass-%e2%80%98wipes-the-floor%e2%80%99-with-ed-miliband-over-mansion-tax/ar-BBeqHLn

.... and here's a balanced contribution from The Independent

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/myleene-klass-heres-what-you-can-buy-in-london-for-2-million-9868472.html

You’ll get anything but "a balanced contribution" from ‘The Metro’, which is hardly surprising since it's a free newspaper produced from the same stable as ‘The Daily Mail’. If you can ever find a more transparently biased piece of so-called 'journalism' than this, I'd be amazed:-

http://metro.co.uk/2014/11/18/heres-a-clue-ed-miliband-myleene-klass-definitely-isnt-jeremy-paxman-4952555/

According to its author, Alex Stevenson, “the mansion tax policy highlights an area of vulnerability for Labour, particularly among the middle classes of London and the south-east”. Really? Since when have so many potential Labour supporters owned properties worth £2 million or more? He says to us: “Wouldn’t David Cameron have been totally relaxed?” What just like he is at PMQs, where he almost always loses his temper?

Charlotte Meredith, writing for ‘The Huffington Post’, paints a more honest picture of the encounter between Myleene Klass and Ed Miliband (part of which can be viewed here):-

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/11/18/myleene-klass-ed-miliband_n_6177104.html

Meredith says that Klass, who became a celebrity after appearing in the short-lived pop group Hear'Say, reportedly sold her home last year for £2.5 million, but seems to think that garages in London are in the same price bracket. Far from tweeters claiming that Klass had “wiped the floor” with Ed (as ‘The Telegraph’ asserted), most were calling her selfish and a hypocrite. In fact a fund-raising page was set up for the singer which reads: “Help Myleene Klass pay her mansion tax. She is a struggling mother with a fortune of £11m who needs our help. Please be generous.”

One poster on the UK Polling Report site watched the whole exchange and then wrote this:-
“Myleene Klass attacks Ed Miliband’s idea for a mansion tax. Klass is forceful. Miliband is polite, and puts his case. He does not dominate; he does not wipe the floor with her. Miliband’s case is stronger than Klass’s case. It is like an amateur in the ring with a professional boxer. The professional treats the amateur gently.”

Writing for ‘The New Statesman’, Anoosh Chakelian’s take on the confrontation is as follows:-
“Not only has Klass' suggestion that £2m will only land you a ‘garage’ in London received a great deal of mockery but the mansion tax is an undeniably popular policy. YouGov recently found that it is supported by 72% of people. As well as this, a majority of people want more money spent on the NHS, which is what Miliband's mansion tax would pay for. This row will do more to bring an already overwhelmingly popular policy proposal to the attention of voters than embarrass Miliband.”

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/11/why-ed-milibands-bizarre-mansion-tax-feud-myleene-klass-works-labours-favour

£11 million and she needs our help? please mylene can you give me some to tide me over, as my £103 per week seems tiny in comparison. being reviewed soon to see if I am getting too much though.

What you have said stuart people like Myleeen Class (SPIT) do not understand, the only thing they understand is how to hang on to there ill gotten gains in other words GREEDY SCUM.

She is worse than that Redflag, but I do not usually use really bad language in front of posters if you excuse me I do not know their gender.

I am female stuart and I can swear as good as the next one, but this lot of Tories have coaxed swear words out of me that I did not know I knew.

I was pretty sure you were love, but not 100% so did not want to refer to you one way or the other.

I am on another forum stuart and they all call me mate, although I have a quote from Jane Austen at the bottom of my posts so do not worry but thank you very much

I'm on another forum too and i'm just called stu so it is up to you Redflag.

The only real people that are saying that Ed is living on borrowed time, and it gets worse the nearer the G.E is the tory press.

Is Ed Miliband living on borrowed time?

Well, is he? The Tories HAVE to make you believe that if they are to enjoy even a chance of forming a majority government on their own.

Well it is no point whatsoever changing the Labour leader ie our Ed is there? he is good enough to make a labour P.M, He has just got to get a bit more fire in his belly in front of the T,V cameras against the opposition.

As I’ve said before, I would have preferred Andy Burnham to have become the Labour leader in 2010, but after a lengthy election process (far too long, but that’s another story), Ed Miliband won, and if you believe in democracy you have to accept that. I’ve since been impressed by much that he’s done, especially in holding the party together in opposition and reforming its funding so as to negate one line of attack from the Tories (some of whom still talk about ‘the block vote’, even though it was abolished in 1993). I’ve defended him from what I’ve seen as unreasonable complaints of “doing nothing”, when it has been extremely difficult to get any positive or even fair media coverage for most of the time.

I do think Ed Miliband has made two mistakes in the past. One concerned the appointment of a shadow chancellor. To choose Alan Johnson, a man who admitted he knew nothing about economics, when he had two experts on the subject (Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper) available, seemed bizarre. Then when Johnson resigned for personal reasons, I think if he’d chosen Yvette it would have been less contentious. His second mistake was in being photographed holding a copy of ‘The Sun’, which will not have gone down well with traditional Labour voters in Liverpool.

Now I think he’s made a third and bigger mistake. Yesterday Emily Thornberry was in Rochester and Strood and posted a series of photographs on Twitter without any comments, except that each of them said “image from Rochester”. One photo showed a house displaying three England flags and a white van parked outside of it. There was some faux outrage on Twitter, generated by Tory trolls, and Emily Thornberry apologised for any offence caused, but she was later removed from her role as shadow attorney general by Ed Miliband.

Wrong decision. Emily’s sacking deflected media attention from Cameron’s bad result in Rochester and Strood. And had she done anything so terrible? Whatever the thinking was behind the photo, was it as bad as Lord Freud saying that the disabled don’t deserve the minimum wage? Was it as bad as Iain Duncan Smith laughing about the rape victim who has taken the DWP to court over the bedroom tax? Was it as bad as Nigel Farage saying “the nig-nogs will never vote for us”? Have any of them been sacked or forced to resign? The Tories and some UKIP boneheads have tried to extrapolate from one photo posted by one MP that Labour is the out-of-touch party of the metropolitan elite. That’s a bit rich from the Eton/Bullingdon mafia, or from an outfit led by a public school City trader and largely bankrolled by a multimillionaire!

I don’t advocate changing a leader who has suffered character assassination from the media, especially when it’s getting close to an election. If you give the reptiles the taste of blood, they’ll want more. But now they’ve tasted the blood of a shadow minister and that will just encourage them. Ed Miliband could have just let this silly story go and by today it would probably have been yesterday’s news. Alternatively, he could have gone on the attack and exposed the hypocrisy of those who usually complain about ‘political correctness’ but just couldn’t wait to jump on this bandwagon.

The thing is it seems Ivan, is that as most M.P.s so high up in his position would have an advisor would they not? well if Ed has got one he or she is not doing a very good job of it are they?

IVAN I voted the same way as your self in the ballot for leader of the Labour party but just like the Labour MPs we have to get behind Ed to back him all the way because otherwise we will end up with Tory/Ukip coalition in 2015 and that will be no good for anybody in the UK except the top 1% of the population of UK.

Seconded Redflag, and I have just left my comment after the dennis skinner out pour at reckless and it has my name to it also against this UKIP COW.

As with Michael Foot and Neil Kinnock, the bosses' press is going all out at character assassination for Miliband, and trying desperately to prove that the UKIPpers are threatening Labour rather than the tory bumsuckers. You don't have to be enthusiastic about a fuhrer to know where you stand when they start up this tedious manoeuvre yet again.

The only real seats that UKIP will win Penderyn, most likely will be the Tory jumpers to UKIP.
The real UKIP ONLY SEATS not many will be won, despite what the shite press do and say.

Ivan wrote:As I’ve said before, I would have preferred Andy Burnham to have become the Labour leader in 2010, but after a lengthy election process (far too long, but that’s another story), Ed Miliband won, and if you believe in democracy you have to accept that.

Pray do not concern yourself, Sir. Surely the British electorate may be trusted to choose the correct administration when they resort to the Ballot Box next May?

fingers crossed that they can be trusted OW

In case anyone hasn't seen the photo tweeted by Emily Thornberry with the caption 'Image from Rochester' which has caused so much fuss:-



Predictably, the BBC is still milking this story for all it's worth, attempting to draw conclusions about Labour's attitude to the working class, which it thinks is represented by one Sun-reading, flag-parading, arm-tattooed cage-fighter who voted Tory in 2010. His neighbours think he's a disgrace, and those flags have been hanging there since the World Cup in June. I come from the working class and this man is not typical of us!

It's strange how neither the BBC nor the press ever made anything of this offensive tweet from a Tory MP:-

Does it really matter who has the poster in the window as long as they vote labour does it Ivan?

Ivan wrote:Predictably, the BBC is still milking this story for all it's worth, attempting to draw conclusions about Labour's attitude to the working class, which it thinks is represented by one Sun-reading, flag-parading, arm-tattooed cage-fighter who voted Tory in 2010. His neighbours think he's a disgrace, and those flags have been hanging there since the World Cup in June. I come from the working class and this man is not typical of us!

It throws an interesting light on how Mr Miliband sees working people, alas!

Penderyn I agree with what you said in your earlier post, the right wing press & media are intent to smear his name in the hope that Labour voters will vote Tory in 2015, hence putting the NASTY BACKSTUDS back into power in 2015 ande only then would the people of the UK see just how EFFING VILE they really are & if they go into coalition with Ukip "Heaven Help the UK"

Hi Redflag.
The UKIP are going to win more seats at the election mainly due to the tory defections winning their seats, just as the last by-election, and the tories look like getting in with a coalition with the UKIP AFTER The GE.

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