Ed Miliband Leader

[Jordy]

Frankly I'm astonished this hasn't been posted yet, half the forum seemed to support Labour around the election, have you all lost faith in the party since or something?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11412031

Anyway Mili-E beat off Mili-D remarkably by just a few votes thanks to unions. If I'm honest it seems like the best man won.

I look forward to seeing Cameron vs Ed M in PMs questions :)

[Tintinnabulate]

I haven't really had time to follow this leadership but from the brief speeches I have seen from both the brothers, David came across stronger as a person and looked like a leader. I think quite a lot of people will like Ed as a person though and therefore might vote for him in the election.
Either way, David is most likely going to be a close adviser anyway so meh.

[kk.]

Im not bothered who won tbqh. Iwould have preferred david, just because he looks better, as in, he looks like he could be trusted to run the country right. But im sure that theyd have both inputted into what the other says and does anyway.

I hope there is another general election soon, and you can already see the cracks in the coalition.

[-:Undertaker:-]

Im not bothered who won tbqh. Iwould have preferred david, just because he looks better, as in, he looks like he could be trusted to run the country right. But im sure that theyd have both inputted into what the other says and does anyway.

I hope there is another general election soon, and you can already see the cracks in the coalition.

I do love this picture.


http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_64itAtqJIlY/SN7PrC_N1GI/AAAAAAAAFk4/z7pZqNGqXKo/s400/Miliband+%26+banana.jpg


I certainly wouldn't trust David Miliband, afterall if 'looks' are anything to go by then he (to me and many other comments I have seen on boards) comes across as very arrogant hence why i'm glad he lost, not to mention the fact he himself is a coward - he was prepared to fan the fires and attempted to unseat Gordon Brown (remember Gordon, the PM all the Labourites were defending not so long ago, whom now are supporting the vultures such as the likes of Miliband who circled around Brown). It is a funny old world is it not?

But not that any of this really matters though, because the Labour Party is virtually the same as the Conservative Party and vice-versa, including the Liberal Democrats. The City of London & financial matters (our most important asset as a country) is now beginning to slip out of our control to the European Union just as enviroment, energy, fisheries, agriculture, employment, justice + many more have all done so.


Here is a short video with the Milibands (both of them) refusing to give real answers, although credit to Ed Miliband who comes across as much less arrogant and more willing to at least give people some of his time, even though it is nonsense that he is spouting. I also recall (from memory, correct me if i'm wrong) that Ed Miliband was pretty much clean on the issue of expenses whereas his brother David was not - so credit also is needed there. Then again, i'd expect that as normal behaviour from our politicians.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x71INuYQnTk


Although what I still don't understand is, why would anybody vote Labour after they've bankrupted the country yet again?

[GommeInc]

Can't say I've shown any interest. As far as I understood the whole thing, they've been trying to make it look like an important thing when in reality no-one gives a damn, because politics is so rubbish at the moment that no-one really has the energy nor care. Good for him, but I honestly doubt there would have been much difference if someone else won.

[Nuxty]

Well, I'm a little bit unsure on this one myself so I haven't really expressed any interest. I am pretty shocked at the fact Ed had won really. At the end of the day, I didn't really want any of the candidates get the position and I do feel that Harriet Harman should have ran for it.

However, as far as I am concerned Ed Miliband in my own opinion doesn't have enough experience in a Senior Party role. I believe that he will have one hell of a job trying to gain victory for Labour in the 2015 elections. However he does have 5 years to do things meaning things could change....

[cocaine]

Mili-E beat off Mili-D

thats disgusting -rep
i saw the speech ed made and to be honest he just looks vacant, i dont trust him from even looking at him. at least david looks engaged.

[Alkaz]

Ed Milliband reminds me of Gordon Brown so much and in so many ways lol. I just assumed that David Milliband would have got it as he looks more the part and seemed to look as though he knew what he was doing but Ed Milliband to me looks like a deer caught in the headlights.

[Nalfar]

don't care.

he was mp for our area and he did bugger all. labour can GO TO HELL

[Bun]

hey be nice, talking about the next PM here boyos. i would have probably preferred david but i'm fine with eddy.

[Apple]

I do not like him at all, he has the charisma of a slug.

[Misawa]

Ed Miliband being victorious is excellent news for the Tories.

[Dean]

I think David should've become the leader, not Ed :| Now things ARE screwed.

[Wig44.]

So, labour is being lead by a man who doesnt actually have the backing of the party. How people could be stupid enough to vote labour after this is mystifying.

[Frodo13.]

I'm a member of Labour and personally voted David Milliband my first preferance, with Ed Milliband 2nd, Andy Burnham 3rd, Ed Balls 4th and Diane Abbott 5th. Obviously, I wasn't too happy with the result, but Ed Milliband at least deserves a chance. At the election, not even a Labour supporter can deny that Labour were clearly rejected by the public, and Ed is possibly right when saying ALOT of changes are going to be needed and not everyone in Labour is going to support it - heck, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown just spent 16 years taking Labour furthur to the right, and Ed looks set to take right back to the left again.

For those saying Ed Milliband isn't experianced enough; they said Obama was inexperianced, they said David Cammeron was inexperianced, they said Tony Blair was inexperianced, they said Abroham Lincoln, one of the most successful presidents of the USA was inexperianced. Get the point?

And to the post above me about Ed not having the backing of the party...it is not the members of the party who decide the outcome of a election, it's the general public!

[-:Undertaker:-]

I'm a member of Labour and personally voted David Milliband my first preferance, with Ed Milliband 2nd, Andy Burnham 3rd, Ed Balls 4th and Diane Abbott 5th. Obviously, I wasn't too happy with the result, but Ed Milliband at least deserves a chance. At the election, not even a Labour supporter can deny that Labour were clearly rejected by the public, and Ed is possibly right when saying ALOT of changes are going to be needed and not everyone in Labour is going to support it - heck, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown just spent 16 years taking Labour furthur to the right, and Ed looks set to take right back to the left again.

For those saying Ed Milliband isn't experianced enough; they said Obama was inexperianced, they said David Cammeron was inexperianced, they said Tony Blair was inexperianced, they said Abroham Lincoln, one of the most successful presidents of the USA was inexperianced. Get the point?

And to the post above me about Ed not having the backing of the party...it is not the members of the party who decide the outcome of a election, it's the general public!



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOjYPc_1N9g

To quote Peter Hitchens 'this is an absurd proposition'.

The Labour Party is nowhere to the right, the illusion for this is only because the Tories have moved to the so called centre-right which is the same thing as centre-left. Fabianism is winning in this country against the wishes of the people and has been since the war (with the exception of the Thatcher government and even that did not dare touch certain areas). I keep hearing this 'red Ed' nonsense when infact 'red Ed' is just the same as David Cameron, Nick Clegg, Gordon Brown, Tony Blair - they all agree on the European Union, foreign affairs, education, the economy (to an extent), virtually everything.

To reinforce this point I will again use Peter Hitchens and would advise anybody interested in politics to read his book, the Cameron Delusion. The reason why people such as yourself and many Conservatives continue to wage war against eachother come election time is very simple - policy actually does not matter to you aslong as 'your lot' are in power. Tribalism is what i'm getting at and it is simply proven by the fact that you voted for David Miliband (a right-winger in the words from where you are coming from) yet now you have 'red Ed' you say the party needs to move to the left. So what do you actually think or are you just voting for who has the best chance to get the red party back into office as I suspect?

Here is a piece on Ed Miliband which rings perfectly true;

http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2010/09/is-ed-really-red-and-other-questions.html


Now to the matter of the alleged 'Red Ed', the youthful Miliband whose election as Labour leader has prompted almost the entire political media. It contains two delusions. The first is that the trade unions are some sort of repository of revolutionary thought, longing to drag the Labour Party back to the days of Militant, Michael Foot etc.

Piffle. The unions have for years been a powerful and effective pressure group, operating mainly through the EU and its regulatory powers, who have under Labour and Tory governments alike suceeded in securing the imposition on this country of extensive and powerful laws on British workplaces, which the militant shop stewards of 30 years ago couldn't have dreamed of.

The idea that the battles of the 1980s - over nationalisation, union power and so forth, are still in progress is likewise nonsense. The left learned form the collapse of the USSR. It didn't learn that it was wrong. It learned that its methods needed revision. Specifically, it learned that direct state ownership of the economy doesn't work. Instead, they turned to regulation, which allows the state an enormous role in the economy, without the direct detailed responsibility required by nationalisation. Most reasonable people, having experienced privatised utilities - gas, electricity, telecommunications etc, can see that the problems of these industries under state control (especially for consumers) were much more to do with monopoly (which more or less persists) than with ownership. And also that there are some industries, notably railways, which only a wholly dogmatic person would privatise. They are plainly better run by the state.

The division between left and right is now really in the areas loosely described as 'sex, drugs and rock and roll', plus of course the use of the education system to impose equality of outcome on its victims. And on the abolition of national sovereignty and its replacement by global or supranational governance, backed up where necessary with liberal military intervention.

In this division, the Tory, Liberal Democrat and Labour Parties are all on the left, signed up to the sexual revolution, the moral revolution, the cultural revolution, comprehensive education, EU membership, etc.

In which case the real problem is not 'Red Ed', but 'Red Dave' Cameron, 'Red Nick' Clegg and indeed 'Red Dave' Miliband, whose political differences with his brother are too tiny to be perceived without a powerful electron microscope.

And that leaves aside the very strange but true development - that the main qualification for high office these days is not experience, but the lack of it.
You do wonder, looking at these people, whether they have left their lunchboxes at home. Ed himself, with his wide, wide eyes and look of perpetual surprise, seems particularly in need of a mother's love and care.

[immense]

as the coolest labour supporter on the forum

i am happy although i tricked dan (undertaker) on msn saying i was considering ukip

[Jordy]

as the coolest labour supporter on the forum

i am happy although i tricked dan (undertaker) on msn saying i was considering ukiplmao that was hilarious, i cant remember did you reveal you were making it up the whole time? was quite late at the time.

[-paul.]

I think it is a new era for Labour. Will be nice to see his ideas

[Mathew]

Regardless of the new Labour "leader", I highly doubt they'll win the next election unless the Tories screw things up further. A lot of people have lost faith in Labour over the past few years. They won the previous election by a small margin, this year they only just lost - I think they'll just keep going downhill tbh.

The Times have run some rather witty stories about Ed Miliband and his speeches over the past few days aswell which has got me pretty interested with all this.

[Frodo13.]

Regardless of the new Labour "leader", I highly doubt they'll win the next election unless the Tories screw things up further. A lot of people have lost faith in Labour over the past few years. They won the previous election by a small margin, this year they only just lost - I think they'll just keep going downhill tbh.

The Times have run some rather witty stories about Ed Miliband and his speeches over the past few days aswell which has got me pretty interested with all this.

How very wrong you are. 2005 was in no way a Labour win by 'a small margin', they had 160 more seats than the opposition. And this year, you can't exactly say that Labour just lost either, because despite the majority of the newspapers being pro-Conservative, despite the Ashcroft millions, Labour were STILL able to deny the Conservatives an overall majority. Yes, your right, alot of people have lost faith in Labour, but the election shows that the people don't have alot of faith in the Conservatives either, hence why they were forced to start a coalition with the Lib Dems.

[Ardemax]

This is a funny thread already.

Basically Dave had the backing of Tony Blair and tbh, didn't we all want a fresh start?

Ed hasn't been leader for a week and the critics are just rolling in.

Seriously give him a chance, he's gonna be better than Blair and Brown and he's already admitted Iraq was a mistake, isn't that what we all wanted to hear? But now that its been said, some people are cowarding away?

Geeeeeez.
O and Labour will be in next election, guaranteed. (Let the flame wars begin)

[-:Undertaker:-]

How very wrong you are. 2005 was in no way a Labour win by 'a small margin', they had 160 more seats than the opposition. And this year, you can't exactly say that Labour just lost either, because despite the majority of the newspapers being pro-Conservative, despite the Ashcroft millions, Labour were STILL able to deny the Conservatives an overall majority. Yes, your right, alot of people have lost faith in Labour, but the election shows that the people don't have alot of faith in the Conservatives either, hence why they were forced to start a coalition with the Lib Dems.

In 2005 Michael Howard was only a few percent behind Tony Blair yet Tony Blair secured that many seats because of the unfair over-proportionally representated Scotland and the inner-city Labour seats. For the Tories to win a seat, it has been worked out that they need many more votes on average than Labour to secure a seat. Indeed, I believe the percentage Labour (in real terms by including those who did not vote) recieved in 1997 was only a mere 22%. All of the time support is dropping for the main parties (all three of them) in terms of votes and in terms of membership which has plummeted across the board over the past few years.

On the newspaper issue, Labour has papers which support it - and if people actually were to the left in this country then they would buy those papers. The Guardian struggles to sell and the only one which does sell (the Daily Mirror) is of very low quality and only ranks up 3rd. It is interesting to see a Labourite bashing the Tories by blaming the newspapers, big money etc when Labour itself was the exact same - so take a look in the mirror I do think.

And as for Labour preventing a Tory overall win, I guess you could argue that in some cases as the Labour vote did increase dramatically - but more so in already left-wing seats such as those in Liverpool where the Tories never had a chance anyway on picking up a seat. It was the eurosceptic vote that cost the Conservatives a full majority (was seen to be 20+ seats).

[Frodo13.]

In 2005 Michael Howard was only a few percent behind Tony Blair yet Tony Blair secured that many seats because of the unfair over-proportionally representated Scotland and the inner-city Labour seats. For the Tories to win a seat, it has been worked out that they need many more votes on average than Labour to secure a seat. Indeed, I believe the percentage Labour (in real terms by including those who did not vote) recieved in 1997 was only a mere 22%. All of the time support is dropping for the main parties (all three of them) in terms of votes and in terms of membership which has plummeted across the board over the past few years.

On the newspaper issue, Labour has papers which support it - and if people actually were to the left in this country then they would buy those papers. The Guardian struggles to sell and the only one which does sell (the Daily Mirror) is of very low quality and only ranks up 3rd. It is interesting to see a Labourite bashing the Tories by blaming the newspapers, big money etc when Labour itself was the exact same - so take a look in the mirror I do think.

And as for Labour preventing a Tory overall win, I guess you could argue that in some cases as the Labour vote did increase dramatically - but more so in already left-wing seats such as those in Liverpool where the Tories never had a chance anyway on picking up a seat. It was the eurosceptic vote that cost the Conservatives a full majority (was seen to be 20+ seats).

And as you well know, using the first past the post system, it's how many SEATS a party gets. I'm not saying this is fair, but as I said in 2005, Labour were no where near losing an overall majority in seats, so it was misleading for that to be said

Clearly, you didn't read my post properly, as I said the MAJORITY of news papers supported the Tories, and I am also very aware of the papers that support Labour. And also, I in no way were 'bashing' newspaper support, the best selling paper in the UK (The Sun) supported Labour for 13 years so I'm quiet aware of the positive impact this can have, although it is funny how Rupert Murdoch only enjoys backing the favorite, makes you wonder if he'll be supporting the Tories if the coalition fails. On another note, Labour, compared to the Conservatives have no major financial backing. As someone who isn't a member of the party, you'd have no idea about the number of letters that came through the letter box begging for money during the election.

The Tories being denied a majority due to a euro-sceptic vote could be true, however, I am more of the opinion it is due to Labour running a fairly good campaign against the odds.

[[Jay]]

I was suprised Ed won this should be intresting, however looking at what happend during this time I would have to say David is deffinatly a better character. He moved from front line polotics to give Ed the best chance, this is what Ed should of done to start of with, he knew that his brother was next in line to be the leader of the labour party but he still ran, where is the brotherly love?

[Jordy]

;6761642']I was suprised Ed won this should be intresting, however looking at what happend during this time I would have to say David is deffinatly a better character. He moved from front line polotics to give Ed the best chance, this is what Ed should of done to start of with, he knew that his brother was next in line to be the leader of the labour party but he still ran, where is the brotherly love?Why should he of just handed victory to David like he wanted? David was an arrogant fool thinking he was next in-line for Labour leadership and that it was his right, far from it. David had the chance to over-throw Gordon Brown who lets face it was a disastrous leader of Labour and the country, yet he was too cowardly to and as a result you got a thrashed at the election and are no longer in power. You don't want someone like that leading your party.