Wednesday 29 September 2010

Percy Miliband and Ed Weasley



Ed Milliband... the younger brother. So ambitious, he won't even let family stand in his way. He's scrapped and scraped together enough support to win the Labour leadership, by less than 1 per cent of the over all vote, despite the bulk of the outgoing shadow cabinet voting against him, and a majority of the Labour MPs preferring his big brother David.
Ed Miliband is the Percy Weasley of Labour politics. Not because he is secretly ginger -- this may or may not be the case -- but because his singular vision, of him at the absolute top, isn't at all blurred by any sense of loyalty to those he grew up with or, indeed to reality.
His speech yesterday ranged from the dull, mechanical fodder of a career politician to the words of a man who is capable of extraordinary powers of selective memory. Turns out Ed was against the war. That will be why he led all those marches... wrote the manifesto that was against Iraq.... oh, no, he did neither of those things. But he was against it. Honestly.
For all his faults, back when he became leader of the opposition Tony Blair was a politician you could really believe in. He was offering something new, something fresh.
Ed? Not so far.
We'll see. Sometimes leaders take time to grow into their positions. But first impressions so often count the best. And the first impression today is that Labour voted for the wrong Miliband.

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