How the Tories Could Win the Next Election. Oh, and Labour*.

As things stand, we’re probably heading towards another hung parliament. Cameron is not repelling people as much as many thought he would, despite his apparent lack of anything approaching a spine. Ed Miliband is a total disaster for his party, and is largely responsible for that party failing to make headway even as the coalition becomes less popular than dysentery. But both of those leaders could win the next election – but only if they are willing to take a gamble and do something bold. But both could do it.

How? Cameron could offer an referendum on the EU. Or, even more radically, he could redress our membership of the EU perhaps even to the point of pulling us out of that whole fucking mess. In doing so, he would become the hero of his party (including those on the right who remain very suspicious of young Hug A Husky). People across the country would also love this; it would be met with rapt applause from The Sun and The Daily Hate. Sure, many wouldn’t like this, but they would be the sort of people who wouldn’t vote for Cameron anyway. The ex-marketing man would be the hero to millions of people across the country, and he’d be able to spin himself as the courageous and visionary leader who dragged his country out of an expensive, bureaucratic mess.

What about Miliband Minor? Well, he could try being the socialist he sometimes hints at wanting to be. He could ramp up the rhetoric against the banks, and present himself as a genuine man of the people fighting on their behalf against reckless and dangerous financial institutions. He could get himself photographed with those members of Middle England struggling to make ends meet, and talk about how he is going to help them. Hell, he could even stand with those at the Occupy protests and claim that he, too, represents the 99%. Of course, it would be a blatant attempt at naked populism. But talking at the anti-war demos never hurt Charles Kennedy, for example. In fact, the opposite is probably true. And yeah, some people would find this sort of approach utterly repellent – myself, for example. But guess what? Those people, including me, would never vote for Miliband Minor anyway.

Which is part of the problem our party leaders have; they are so determined to try to please everyone all the time they lose sight of the fact that to do so is impossible and in trying they run the risk of really pissing off their core supporters. They fight so hard for the centre ground that they become myopic about the whole, broad range of the political spectrum. And then they wonder why fewer people vote, and they get approval ratings that, at best, are flat-lining, and at worst in free-fall. There is a real need for bold leadership in this day and age; unfortunately our leaders do not seem willing or able to provide it. So instead, we end up with cowardly, centrist jellyfish who actually please no-one; not even the core supporters of their own parties.

*And the Lib Dems? How could they win the next election? Well, they can’t. Hell, I don’t even know how they can maintain the disappointing result they got in 2010. Unless something pretty bloody spectacular happens, then the next election is not going to be very pleasant for the Liberal Democrats. 

Quote of the Day

From Nick Cohen on the departure of Dan Hodges from The New Statesman for not following the pro-Miliband Minor line:

I know that editors censor the world over because they are frightened of the secret police, authoritarian government, megalomaniac proprietors, corporate paymasters, terrorist militias and the like. But what can one say about a magazine that censors because it is frightened of Ed Miliband?

Labour's Lack of Stars

Over at the perpetually shitty LabourList, some lackwit is arguing against the likes of Prescott appearing on TV to give the new regime a chance to hog the limelight:

Leaving Prescott's point aside for the moment, his Today programme appearance was almost entirely unhelpful. Throughout the interview he came across as a patronising parent ruefully dismissing the efforts of his offspring. What he may have thought was refreshing candour from an old hand, sounded more like a ghost of Labour past haunting its fledgling future. Or it might simply be that he finds the amorous approaches of the media too tempting to resist.

But resist the media he should, as part of the problem of the perceived silence of the Labour opposition is that old Westminster denizens continue to hog the limelight. Peter Mandleson, Jacquie Smith, Alistair Darling, John Reid and Prescott, to name but a few, have made regular media appearances, whereas the likes of Maria Eagle, Meg Hillier, Mary Creagh and Ivan Lewis have featured only sporadically. It's too easy to blame the media for continually seeking the opinions of well known former, or no longer front line, politicians. The media keep returning to Prescott et al because they know he is widely publically recognisable and will readily appear for them and provide comment. If Prescott really wants to give the new shadow cabinet the room to breathe he needs to make himself permanently unavailable for comment. And that goes for the rest of the old guard too.

In case anyone was wondering, Prescott's point was that the Shadow Cabinet should be speaking up and taking the fight to the Tories. Which in fairness to that fat, stupid lump of arrogant lard, is a valid point that should be made to the largely silent people making up her majesty's opposition.

Furthermore, Prescott et al are more then entitled to speak, not least to defend their record. Don't get me wrong, I think their record is completely indefensible. But at a time when this lot has either departed to the backbenches, to mediocrity outside Parliament or to the Lords, what else do they have to do other than try to defend their horrific records before the verdict of history is finally returned (no doubt against them).

Besides, from a pragmatic point of view, isn't there something that could be taken by the incumbent Labour party leadership from those who led the party over the past two decades? Like how to win three General Elections on the trot? Again, I'd like the Labour party to go on failing as badly as it did in 2010, but if I was leading it, then I would be looking to understand Blair's successes at the ballot box rather than dismissing the most successful Labour leader there has ever been.

And the very fact that Prezza et al can get into the media so often is not only a testament to their high visibility, but also to the complete lack of visibility of the Shadow Cabinet. Despite following politics closely, I've never really heard of Meg Hillier or Mary Creagh. I know of Maria Eagle because she is one half of Parliament's twins, while Ivan Lewis has only really crossed my radar for his outrageous opinions on journalists. And while I know it is difficult for members of the Shadow Cabinet to get the attention they might want or need, a crucial step in the rehabiliation of the Labour party in the eyes of the wider electorate is that they become visible as members of the opposition. Only then will people begin the process of seeing them as a credible alternative government.

So it is all very well for LabourList to snipe at the fading stars of Labour's yesteryear as they pontificate on the national stage. But until the supposed stars in Labour's current firmament actually start to make an impression, Labour's vacuous followers shoudn't expect anything more than the likes of Prezza clogging up the airwaves.

Miliband Minor; Not a "Socialist Intellectual"

To most people, Ed Miliband is a pompous, indignant potato wearing a bad wig. Not for Labour "thinker" Maurice "Halt Immigration" Glasman. According to that weapons grade bellend, the failing leader of the opposition is best described as follows:

He described the Labour leader, whose Marxist father was a university lecturer, as "socialist and an intellectual" with an "angry insurgent side".

The final description is perhaps the most laughable. Ed Miliband, a vacuous political lightweight, is not a "angry insurgent" in any way, shape of form. He is not the political equivalent of an IED. He is the political equivalent of a jobsworth promoted well beyond his actualy level of ability.

As for socialist - if he is a socialist, then he shouldn't be in the Labour party. That party became a caricature of itself a long time ago, and while it remains statist to its core, it lost its socialism when Michael Foot demonstrated that socialism was about as popular as mass dysentry in the 1983 election. A true socialist would join the Greens. Or maybe waste their time in the SWP. The Labour party is for naked political careerists who want to be seen as slightly more touchy- feely than the Tories. The Labour party remains a dangerous, statist organisation that should not be in power. But that does not make it socialist. Whether it was truly a socialist organisation is a debate for another day; here it is worth noting that a socialist in the Labour party is someone in entirely the wrong organisation.

And intellectual? Please. Modern politics is no place for a true intellectual. Just as it is no place for someone who genuinely has principles or a moral compass. In order to be a modern politician you need to switch off your brain and compromise both your principles and whatever morals you might have. That is why we end up with bland, empty political ciphers as our party leaders. Y'know, people like Clegg, Cameron and, well, Miliband Minor.

Since the moment he declared his candidacy for the Labour leadership, people have been trying to make out that Miliband Minor is some sort of return by the Labour party to its roots - that he is a new radical who is destined to bring about a brave, new socialist dawn for his party and then for his country. This plan is, of course, fatally flawed in one crucial way - it has Ed Miliband at its centre. A loathsome little individual who is so lacking in charisma and conviction that his own brother - a total dweeb in his own right - thought that the best thing for the party was to continue to fight against him. The likes of Glasman can make up whatever shit they want to about Miliband Minor; the fact of the matter is that the sooner they wake up and realise that Miliband Minor is a fucking disaster, the sooner they can actually get around to electing a credible leader. Not a socialist intellectual (nor should they want one, given how that socialist intellectual Foot did as leader), but a credible leader.

Why The Tories Will Almost Certainly Win A Second Term

Guido has recently had a post up questioning whether we are witnessing a one-term Tory government. While the points raised are relevant, I can’t help but feel that Guido is hedging his bets to some extent. If the Tories win outright, he has a whole host of posts highlighting the failure of Labour to get anywhere. If the Tories lose, he can point to this post and again be “proved” right. But that could just be my natural cynicism (which is generally rewarded where Mr Fawkes is concerned, though). The point of my post is that, as things stand, I think the Tories will go on to win a second term.

There are three reasons for this. Firstly, while things may get worse in terms of the economy, there is also the possibility that things will get distinctly better – especially if George Osborne clocks that economic recovery is aided by tax cuts as well as spending cuts. A recovering economy tends to reward the incumbent government; if Cameron & Co can pull it off, there’s no reason why they shouldn’t reap the rewards in the ballot box. And, after a year and a bit in office, there is still a lot of time to do it before the country has to go back to the polls in 2015.

The second reason is that the Tories aren’t really campaigning at the moment. They’ve got other stuff to do. Like govern. And, of course, muzzle their coalition partners as much as possible. However, come the next election (and they will effectively decide when that is – don’t rule out the possibility of a snap poll if a Tory victory looks likely in one), they will be coming out all guns blazing, using the healthy war chest to try to dominate the core messages of that campaign. And I think they will be emphasising the compromises they have made for the supposed good of the nation (for example, going into the coalition), the difficult choices they believe they have made (cuts etc) at the same time as hammering Labour for leaving them such a fucking mess to deal with in the first place. In the meantime, Labour have little else to do but campaign. And how well are they doing at that? Well, they are attracting back some of the supporters they lost during the long, messy years they spent in power, but those people are coming back for no real reason other than they don’t like the Tories and the reality of that party being ineffective control of the country narks them a bit. Labour, despite having all the time that no longer governing affords a party, are struggling to effectively vocalise any sort of popular message or image.

Which leads me to the third reason why a Tory victory still looks likely – Ed Miliband is just plain shit at the job of being Leader of the Opposition. And if you are shit at that job you have precisely no credibility when it comes to pitching for the promotion to the top job. Especially when the guy you are fighting for that job is already in it. Cameron may be compromised by, say, his association with Rebekah Brooks, but he still looks a lot more credible and Prime Ministerial than his Labour counterpart. Of course, Miliband Minor might be binned before the next election. But who would they replace him with? The reason he won the last Labour leadership election was because he appeared to be the least shit of those running in it. That situation hasn’t changed; there appears to be no-one in the upper echelons of the Labour party who could look credible against even that lightweight David Cameron.

Of course, lots could change, politics is constantly changing blah blah fucking blah. And yeah, something could happen that radically changes the political landscape. But as things stand, I think that enough of the British people will decide, in balance and when faced with the reality of voting in the ballot box on Election Day, that they prefer the devil they know rather to the one they don’t. The Tories will, most likely, benefit from a grudging refusal on the part of the British people to embrace change unless they absolutely have to or have grown utterly repelled by the incumbent government.

After all, that’s what allowed the odious Tony Blair to be re-elected. Twice.

Guido is once again spouting self-serving bullshit and revealing his socially conservative side in the process:

What happened to the Ed Miliband who got hitched to Justine after pressure from those of us who pointed out that it was unusual and a little bit weird for a party leader not to be married to the mother of his children?

Now, I have no idea why Ed Miliband chose to get married this year; it could be because of Guido’s pressure (although I rather think Guido is once again over-estimating his own influence); it could be because Miliband Minor wanted to silence the snidey bullshit emerging about his private relationship with the mother of his children and life partner coming from prurient muck-rakers like Gudio. It could also be because he loves Justine and wanted to make that relationship formal. I don’t know why he chose to do what he did; nor does Guido, I rather suspect.

And while it true that party leaders are traditionally married to the mother (or father, in the case of Thatcher) of their children, it is not a “little bit weird” if they are not. There are countless couples across the country who are not married despite having children. I know two couples myself who are about to have children but who are not married. We live in a time when marriage is no longer considered an essential stepping stone before a couple can have children. Thankfully, we live in a more modern age. People might not get married before having kids because they just don’t get round to it (and trust me, organising a wedding takes a lot of time), it might be because they don’t see any value in marriage or believe that their love for each other needs to be rubber stamped by the church or the state. Such views are not “weird”; they are perfectly valid alternative views for those who are not obsessed by the social norms of the past and are happy to live in a way that is slightly different from the socially conservative expectations of the likes of Guido Fawkes.

An Epic Summer Recess

I always wonder why it is presented as something that is in some way comforting when the House of Commons returns from a recess to debate a key issue of the day. Why would a bunch of self-important, indolent and self-serving gobshites pontificating on riots or on phone hacking make a blind bit of fucking difference out there in the real world? No doubt the rioters are now shitting themselves and would never dare to rob a Foot Locker again, and all because Cameron and Miliband returned (no doubt briefly) to the Commons to engage in an extended bout of meaningless posturing.

But what is really striking is that this is the second time that the Commons has been recalled from its recess since it began about halfway through July. I don’t care that there have been two crises in that short space of time; rather, I’m staggered by just how many recesses the Commons has awarded itself and how long the summer recess is. MPs don’t have to attend the Commons from 19th July to 5th September this year, and then they’re back for a whopping 10 days before getting a Conference recess from 15th September to 10th October. Yeah, I know that they have constituency duties, but effectively from late June until mid-October MPs are doing at best half their jobs, and they aren’t doing one of the crucial things they are elected to do; they aren’t debating legislation, they aren’t legislating, and they are not governing despite being, y'know, the government. I feel some relief that they aren’t adding to the legislative burden of this country for much of what we laughably call the summer**, but I’m staggered given the amount they are paid and the role they do (governing, for fuck’s sake) which apparently still allows them to take a large swathe of the summer off. Because, as the hacking scandal and the riots show, politics does not stop just because we are in the summer months.

It would be too much to state that the feckless indolence of much of the population is the result of the feckless indolence of the parliamentarians who apparently see nothing wrong with taking the majority of the summer off*** - I suspect that most people don’t know about the recess and probably don’t care. But there is a concept called “leading by example”; our MPs expect us to follow them but time and time again they show a steadfast refusal to demonstrate why we should follow them or actually consider them to be leaders. At a time when the economy is struggling and disaffection with politicians is running at an all-time high, a starting point to turn this situation around could be our MPs starting to work at full pelt not just in parts of the year, but across the whole year. Which is not too much to ask, surely?

*Or in the case of Gordon Brown, pretty much at all.
**Given this positively autumnal August.
***There are some who have argued that the summer recess would be reduced – such as former MP Chris Mullin. The fact that their aruments have made sod all difference is probably a good indicator of the mindset of those who sit in the Commons.

Glasman, Immigration and the BNP

Maurice Glasman, key expounder of "Blue Labour" and general ideologue for Ed Miliband, on immigration:

In an interview with this newspaper, he said: “We've got to reinterrogate our relationship with the EU on the movement of labour.

“The EU has gone from being a sort of pig farm subsidised bloc to the free movement of labour and capital.”

He added: “Britain is not an outpost of the UN. We have to put the people in this country first."

Asked if that meant stopping immigration virtually completely for a period, he said: “Yes. I would add that we should be more generous and friendly in receiving those [few] who are needed. To be more generous, we have to draw the line."

Oh, whoopie-fuck. Another poltical figure jumping on the anti-immigration bandwagon. And another figure with genuine political influence only seeing a problem with the monolithic, bureaucratic, profligate and largely unaccountable EU on account of its impact on immigration. Surely it isn't too much to hope that political thinkers in this country could have slightly more meaningful inspirations that a compendium of anti-immigration headlines from The Daily fucking Mail.

Of course, Ed Miliband has distanced himself from these largely toxic propositions. But this is the same Ed Miliband who has been waffling on about the "mistakes" that the Labour government (of which he was a part, natch) made in regard to immigration when in power at the same time as being the Ed Miliband who slavishly followed Gordon "British Jobs for British Workers" Brown. Difficult to imagine where Glasman might have got the idea that his anti-immigration views might have gone down with Miliband Minor, eh?

There is so much talk about whether Social Democracy or neoliberalism has become the dominant ideology in this country, and therefore whether Thatcher or Blair actually won the battle to dominate the consensus politics in this country. When I see yet another political figure slating immigration, I can't help but wonder whether the BNP have actually succeeded in dominating political discourse in this country, at least when it comes to immigration.

Update: Obnoxio the Clown agrees with me. Using language (and imagery) that makes my own look quite restrained.

Size Doesn't Matter, Law-Breaking Does

Before we start, let's talk pause for a moment to pause on the comments of one Ed Miliband:

"I think that we've got to look at the situation whereby one person can own more than 20% of the newspaper market, the Sky platform and Sky News.

"I think it's unhealthy because that amount of power in one person's hands has clearly led to abuses of power within his organisation. If you want to minimise the abuses of power then that kind of concentration of power is frankly quite dangerous."

I love the latter paragraph. Miliband Minor is probably completely oblivious of the fact that it could just as easily be applied to the Nu Labour government as it could to News International. But I digress.

The general feeling coming from both the Leader of the Opposition and the Deputy Prime Minister seems to be that the size of News International is the problem. Of course, there's no doubting that Murdoch has controlled a lot of the press in this country for a long time. Some would say he's controlled too much of it, but I wouldn't, frankly. Because when people talk about the plurality of the press (as Clegg is currently doing) I can't help but notice that there is still a lot to choose from in this country, even before the News of the World was given a metaphorical bullet in the back of the head by its owners. I don't read The Sun and, since it disappeared behind a pay wall, The Times either. I don't have Sky, I don't watch Fox News. Despite the amount of the media that Murdoch owns, it is still perfectly possible to ignore Rupert's acquisitions if you so wish.

Of course, it could be claimed that it doesn't matter to me what News International are up to or what they think as they do not watch my every move and report on it - unlike those who rule our country. The sheer size of the Murdoch empire makes it impossible for the ruling parties to ignore it. But is this actually true? Sure, News International attempt to influence successive governments, but part of the problem is down to successive governments not just acknowledging those attempts, but proactively courting Murdoch and his media outlets. And it doesn't even need aggressive legislation to stop the influence of the Murdoch empire - politicians could just stop seeking and then suckling on the teat that is News International. Of course, it could be argued that what Miliband Minor and Clegg are now starting to do is take on NI - but what they are actually doing is nothing more than shameless bandwagon jumping. This has nothing to do with preventing a repetition of the News International crisis, and has everything to do with get good column inches and poll boosts for two party leaders who have been seriously struggling in recent times to get anywhere.

And you want to know why this is nothing more than bandwagon jumping? Well, the problem with News International isn't its size - it is down to the fact that it broke the law. Having a large organisation does not mean that you will automatically seek to blag and to phone hack. It doesn't automatically mean that you or your employees will systematically seek to break the law. Indeed, it looks as if those at the head of News International do not operate like a normal major multinational plc, but rather like a mafia family or a cult. But let me repeat myself - size doesn't matter, law-breaking does. And there are laws in place to deal with News International - but I've already mentioned this earlier in the week. What Miliband Minor and Clegg should be doing is calling for the enforcement of the existing laws, not new regulations. But they can't do that, they won't do that because they are, basically, out and out cowards who are more interested in not missing a populist bandwagon than they are in crucial political principles such as the importance of the rule of law and the need to avoid legislation and regulations designed to do nothing more than please the fitful, ever-changing and oh-so-temporary baying mob.

Journalists: Do Your Job

Like everyone else who doesn't slavishly believe that that everything the failing Leader of the Opposition does is solid gold (should any of them still exist), I had a lot of fun laughing at that Ed Miliband interview. Come on, you know the one I mean - the one where he comes across like a political speak-your-weight machine, unable to change what he is saying in any meaningful way. For Ed Miliband, spin is king, and he doesn't mind coming across as an unthinking, arrogant bore in order to get his facile soundbite across.

But there is a wider problem here, and it is revealed in the journalist who conducted the interview's own words:

If news reporters and cameras are only there to be used by politicians as recording devices for their scripted soundbites, at best that is a professional discourtesy. At worst, if we are not allowed to explore and examine a politician’s views, then politicians cease to be accountable in the most obvious way. So the fact that the unedited interview has found its way onto YouTube in all its absurdity, to be laughed at along with all the clips of cats falling off sofas, is perfectly proper.

Afterwards, I was overcome with a feeling of shame. I couldn’t look him in the eye.

But before I dried up completely, and had to be led out of Westminster with my mouth opening and shutting, I had an opportunity to ask one last question. I had an urge to say something so stupid, so flippant that he would either have to answer it, or get up and leave. `What is the world’s fastest fish?’ `Can your dog do tricks?’ `Which is your favourite dinosaur?’ But, of course, this was a pool interview, and I had no wish to feed out the end of my television career to Sky and the BBC.

I realise now, of course, the perfect question to ask, to embarrass him and to keep my job. I should have asked was whether the strikes were wrong, whether the rhetoric had got out of hand, and whether it was time for both sides to get round the negotiating table before it happened again.

Because that was the only answer I ever got.

In a sense, he's right - if journalists are only allowed to get soundbites from politicians, then politicians cannot really be held to account for what they believe and what they propose to do/actually do. But who can avert this, I hear you ask. Well, journalists. They should man the fuck up and actually interview people properly. Ed Miliband just feeding you the same, banal line? Well, call him on it. Say that's what he's doing, and ask him to actually answer the questions you put to him. Yeah, he might get hacked off and he might not want you to interview him again. But at least you will have done your job, and your company will have evidence of Ed Miliband - soundbite man. Yes, it might be difficult and yes, it might be uncomfortable. But seriously, if you are looking for an easy profession, you chose the wrong one my friend.

From some pro-Ed Miliband chopper:

Ed’s enemies have no discernible principle, however misguided. They dream only of David: limp, charming US conformist, token foreign secretary, but the rightful heir to the shining void of Blairism. Childish beyond words, their view is supplemented by the trivialist press. Sketchwriters, too idle to stay for any parliamentary business except the leaders’ set piece, expatiate on voice timbre, assurance quotient, facial appearance and high-profile oneupmanship. The government meanwhile is rolling over in contradictions, policy reversals and ‘clarifications’. The opposition won’t need a ‘stronger’ leader to defeat them at the next election. They might try calm or reticence or even unity – or that bit in the Brer Rabbit books about lying low and saying nothing.

I'm pretty sure that at least some of Ed's enemies have a very clear principle for opposing him - the fact that he's shit.

Miliband Minor's Twitter Mauling

There's a certain idiotic brilliance to this. I mean, what the hell to Ed Miliband and his team think was going to be the outcome of him answering questions on Twatter? Are they really so naive that they thought that only people as earnest as Miliband Minor would head online to talk to him? It was an example of someone who really should have known better walking headlong into the most obvious of ambushes. And that ambush was actually created by Team Miliband Minor. Talk about making a rod for your own back.

But after a pretty disastrous week for the lesser Miliband, this is surely the last thing he wanted - a widely reported online savaging (even if The Guardian is desperately trying to spin it). And the fact that he created this own goal speaks volumes about just how inept he is as politician. I reckon that this will be one of those moments that people in the future will use to explain to others why Ed Miliband had to be replaced as Labour leader.

The Dubious, Yet Still Useful, Advice of Tony Blair

Mehdi Hasan on why the Labour party shouldn't listen to Tony Blair:

1) On Blair's watch, Labour lost four million votes between 1997 and 2005. Lest we forget, in the 2005 general election, Blair was re-elected with a vote share of 35 per cent - that's less than the majority-less Cameron achieved in 2010. Blair won in 2005 because his opponent was Michael Howard.

Couple of points here. Firstly, Blair may have lost circa 4 million votes between 1997 and 2005, but he also gained around 2 million for Labour in 1997 and in doing so gave the Labour party a formidable majority that allowed it to stay in power even as voters began to desert Labour. Which leads me nicely to the second point - Blair didn't win in 1997 because he was up against Howard (who actually managed to make 2005 a competitive General Election in a way that Hague or IDS would never have been able to manage) but because of Britain's curious electoral system that is often very much biased towards the incumbent. Indeed, that's why Cameron - despite routing Labour in many respects - was unable to form a government in 2010 unaided.

2) When Blair left office in the summer of 2007, his personal poll ratings were falling - and so too were the Labour Party's. As the authors of the new book, Explaining Cameron's Coalition, argue, "Blair's ratings were falling from 1997 and that, even if Labour had not changed leader, it is likely that Blair's would have been as low as Brown's were by 2010."

So? This shows the inherent naive way of thinking of many Labour supporters. The choice was not simply between Blair and Brown, no matter how the post-Blair succession actually went. There could have been any number of other MPs to replace Blair when he resigned had Brown not stitched up that leadership contest like a second-rate Stalin. Blair and Brown would have been shit in 2010, fine. What about Alan Johnson? Or Jack Straw? Or maybe even David Miliband? There were other potential leaders out there who would have been more popular than both Blair and Brown.

3) Blair invaded Iraq. Regardless of whether you think it was right or wrong to topple Saddam Hussein, politically, the war was a massive misjudgement on Blair's part. It split his party and the country, cost him his political capital, wrecked his reputation and undermined any legacy he might have hoped to leave behind as a three-time election winner. As the former Lib Dem leader Sir Menzies Campbell once put it, "Mary Tudor had Calais engraved on her heart. Blair will have Iraq engraved on his heart and there is no escaping it."

Well, this is true - even thought the phrasing makes me picture Blair trying to invade Iraq single-handedly. Blair's legacy will forever be tarnished by the pointless, illegal war in Iraq. His decision to climb into the arsehole of the least intelligent and capable President in living memory was such an error of judgement that it makes every other decision he ever made open to question. But the fact that he dropped the ball in such an lethal way when it came to Iraq can't change the fact that he is perhaps, in electoral terms anyway, the most successful Labour leader of all time. If memory serves, he's the only Labour leader to have fought General Elections and not lost at least one of them.

So Hasan is right, in a sense - Miliband Minor should be wary of the advice of one Anthony Blair. But he should also be wary of not taking that advice when it comes to electioneering. Blair won three successive General Elections on the trot and - as much as I openly despise the truculent shit - anyone wanting to win a General Election for themselves should at least think about why Blair managed to achieve what he achieved.

David Miliband: Still Shit, Just Like His Brother

Of course I watched the Miliband Minor bashing of this past week with an amused smile - as someone who cannot stomach the little turd, it was a beautiful thing to see (well, read about). But what does bother me is the fact that his equally vapid and unlikable brother's unused victory speech has surfaced. It isn't so much the content of the speech, which could be spouted by just about any senior figure in any of the main parties with only the personal touches changed. Rather, it is stuff like this:

He and his wife Louise Shackleton clambered into their car just before 7pm to get home. As he was driven through the late September evening he is said by friends to have recited his undelivered speech in its entirety. In the privacy of the two-hour journey back to Primrose Hill, only his wife heard the address that had been meant for the thousands in the conference hall - but clearly for the country too.

The whole paragraph seems designed to create sympathy for Miliband Major, and almost to fabricate that feeling of "oh, but what if David had been elected rather than Ed?" There almost seems to be this sense in which the Labour party missed out on a great leader when the unions the Labour party chose Miliband Minor over his marginally more famous brother.

What bollocks. What absolute shite. The people who swallow this sort of line are wearing rose-tinted glasses so thick that they are effectively blind to the reality of what is really rather recent history. David Miliband isn't a great lost Labour leader; he's the spineless, geeky fuck who did nothing about torture being used as part of the War on Terror and who preferred to spend his time posing with a fucking banana than deposing the totally destructive and utterly repellent Gordon Brown.

David Miliband is not a great lost Labour leader, nor is he a great lost potential Prime Minister. He's a policy wonk promoted far beyond his level of ability and charisma. Had Labour elected him, they would be facing the same problems as they are with that chinless wonder of a brother of his. It is difficult to know who the right choice was for Labour leader last year, but I'm pretty sure that the right choice didn't have the surname of Miliband.

From a LabourList article speculating on who was behind the latest leaks to hit the beleaguered Miliband Minor leadership:

So we could well presume it was the Tories. It may not rid them of Balls, their bogeyman, but it has got the spotlight off them temporarily and has got everyone focussed on Labour’s big split.

Errr, no, that doesn't make sense. I'm not a Tory, but I'm pretty sure that if I was then one of the main people who I would want to keep at the very heart and at the very head of the Labour party would be Ed Balls. Yes, he manages to land some blows on the Tories. But he does so in such a way that makes him utterly repellent - like a school bully with no self-awareness whatsoever. He comes across as a repugnant individual; a nasty little thug who finds arguing with and smearing his opponents almost arousing. He is about as popular as foot and mouth disease at a country fair.

So the Tories will want to keep Balls as Shadow Chancellor for as long as possible. Having that vile puff adder as close to the top of the Labour party is great for them - it will remind the people of so much of what they hated about the Brown years. And if the Labour party wants to figure out who has stitched up Balls so nicely over the past week then they should bear in mind that if you climb to the top of the greasy pole by shafting other people, you leave in your wake a lot of enemies. And if you also leave a paper trail, then at some point you can be sure that someone you fucked over will delight in returning the favour...

BREAKING NEWS: Blair and Brown didn't get along that well

I'm amazed that this constitutes news:

The Labour Party's two most senior figures have denied a "brutal" plot to destroy Tony Blair after the 2005 election, as a probe was launched into leaked documents.

The Daily Telegraph claims Ed Balls , as well as Labour leader Ed Miliband , began scheming to divide their party within weeks of the general election.

Really? How amazing. I mean, the Labour party civil war wasn't mentioned at all in the period after 2005 (or, indeed, before it). Everyone always thought that the relationship between Blair and Brown was hunky-dory, didn't they?

Of course, Miliband Minor (sort of) and Balls are on hand to deny the story:

Mr Miliband told Sky News: "I think what you are seeing is an overhyped version of ancient history.

"Frankly, the era of Blair and Brown is over. This generation of politicians is not going to repeat the mistakes of Blair and Brown."

Mr Balls told Sky News: "The fact that the first time I knew that they'd been taken was last night when they appeared in the Daily Telegraph I think shows that I didn't think this file, these documents were of great significance.

"The last time I saw them was when they were on my desk in the department before the general election.

"I don't know how they've been taken. I'm glad that's now being investigated.

"But the idea that these documents show that there was a plot or an attempt to remove Tony Blair is just not true.

"It's not justified either by the documents themselves, or by what was actually happening at the time."

The phrase "but they would say that, wouldn't they?" has seldom been more pertinent. Although I do like the fact that Miliband Minor stops short of fully denying the allegations. A brush-off is not the same as a denial...

Conservative Party chairman Michael Fallon MP said the leak showed Mr Balls could "not be trusted".

"First he denied this at the time, [but] now we know it's true," he said.

"It shows he's completely unsuited to be a serious figure in government. He simply couldn't be trusted, for example to plot against his current leader Ed Miliband."

Fuck-a-duck we've got an intellectual giant here. Ed Balls unfit to be a serious figure in government - who'd have thought it? And the fact that he can't be trusted is an absolute revelation.

Miliband Minor is right (a phrase I seldom, if ever, use) when he says that this is "ancient history". Honest to God, the Blair/Brown feud got boring while those fuckers were still running the country. It is beyond boring now. And anyone who needs evidence beyond that of their own eyes and ears that both of the Eds are wankers utterly unfit for high office is hopelessly naive.

Dan Hodges, Ed Miliband and a Chronic Lack of Choice

I do enjoy some of the articles written by Dan Hodges over at The New Statesman - the ones slating Ed Miliband, obviously. Miliband Minor has few critics as persistent as Hodges. His articles on the failing and flailing Labour leader are filled with gems such as this one:

Liam Byrne has presented Ed Miliband with a chance to begin to define his leadership. If he takes it, it could be a turning point. If he doesn't, it may represent one final, missed opportunity.

I think Hodges is often spot on in his analysis of the flaws of the lesser Miliband. However there is a problem in that Hodges clearly has an agenda of his own - since he was a key supporter of Miliband Major's bid for the Labour leadership. And this is what, in a sense, makes his articles even more fun - because the comments descend to the level of internecine-Labour party conflict, with some defending the indefensible (i.e. Ed Miliband) at the same time as (quite rightly, on some levels) accusing Hodges of being motivated mainly by sour grapes.

But the point is that Hodges' scribblings accurately represent the big problem that faced Labour when they replaced Brown and, arguably, still faces them today should they choose to do what is necessary and bin the Ed. That problem is the complete lack of choice when it coems to potential leadership candidates. Had Miliband Major been elected then there would be someone who supported his brother's campaign belly-aching on a weekly basis in The New Statesman about the failings of David as Leader of the Opposition. Neither of the Miliband leaders are inspirational in any way, shape or form - including the lost Miliband, Andy Burnham. Ed Balls is just plain vile, while Diane Abbott remains a joke. No matter who won the Labour leadership election last year, all would be struggling now as Labour leader. Furthermore, if there were to be a new contest right now, it is difficult to imagine a more inspirational line-up. The party hasn't reinvigorated itself in opposition; rather, it still doesn't seem to understand that it needs to reinvigorate itself at all.

So keep on sniping away at Ed Miliband, Dan. But at some point you're going to have to face up to the fact that your chosen candidate wasn't any better, and that the problems with the party you support run deeper than the fool who happens to be running that party at the moment.

Predicting the Opinion of Political History

This proved, somewhat unexpectedly, to be a very interesting documentary.

In a sense, I know very little about the Wilson/Heath years. I mean, I know the basic outline of what happened, if only because it provides some of the context for contemporary politics. But for me, the Wilson/Heath years (and the Callaghan administration) is part of the dour, drear post-war consensus era – that dull time when politics ground to a halt because the main parties pretty much agreed on everything. The programme did little to change my opinion of this era, but it did reframe it in a way that I hadn’t considered before through making it a duel between two of Britain’s least compelling Prime Ministers. It’s an interesting way of looking at politics between the mid-sixties and the mid-seventies.

And it did leave me wondering how the current political era will ultimately be viewed when similar documentaries are made in the future. I mean, in a sense it is easy to write the history of the Nu Labour years as it has two defining characteristics (ignoring the obvious ones like spin, mendacity and crushing incompetence). You can sum up the Nu Labour years by referencing the illegal and pointless war in Iraq at the same time as talking about the Blair-Brown rivalry. Unlike the Wilson/Heath years you don’t really need to mention whoever was in opposition. But what about the current era? How will the first year of the coalition be remembered?

I suspect that it will be remembered as the time when politics – or at least politicians and political commentators – went a little mad and forgot that the main party in government was the Tories rather than the Liberal Democrats. It will be about how the opposition party decided to fight Britain’s third party rather than the first party, and how the pointless chunterings of a second-rate politician like Vince Cable became front page news. And I rather suspect that historians will be incredulous as to the extent to which Nick Clegg became a Teflon coating for David Cameron. Above all, though, I think that this era could be framed around the question of why the Labour party allowed the Tories to coast to a real general election victory under the vacuous and utterly pointless Ed Miliband…

I heartily recommend reading this article on why the Yes to AV campaign failed. It makes it clear that appealing solely to your core supporters and trying to patronise the floating voter into backing you is a sure-fire recipe for disaster. Something Ed Miliband would do well to remember...

Ed Miliband - On Borrowed Time?

You know, I really feel sorry for Nick Clegg. He's spent the best part of the past year acting as a teflon coating for David Cameron, and since Thursday's elections, he's doing exactly the same thing for Ed Miliband. Because it is only the fact that the Liberal Democrats did so badly on Thursday that hides the fact that it was also a very difficult and disappointing set of results for the Labour leader.

Let's look at the best result for Miliband Minor - the fact that the Labour party have gained seats and, indeed, overall control of some councils. As things stand (Saturday at ten to two, fact fans) Labour have gained 800 seats and 26 councils. Yet the vast majority of those gains have been at the expense of the Liberal Democrats, and taking votes from them at the moment really is like taking candy from a baby. But what should be worrying Miliband - what should really be worrying him - is the result for the Tories. Over the past year, they have been heading up a coalition pursuing, for many, deeply unpopular and divisive policies. In fact, hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets to protest against those policies. The results at their first electoral test in government? 81 new councillors, and 4 new councils. Far from struggling to hold onto their territory, they have actually gained ground since taking power. Ultimately, Miliband Minor needs to be able to take on the Tories properly if he wants to be installed at Number 10. There's no evidence here that he will be able to do it. In fact, the council results suggest all he has managed to do is win some seats that the Labour party should never have lost in the first place from a massively unpopular third party.

And the council results are the best for him of the day.

Because in Wales, Labour have made some gains, but still seem unable to take control outright. And Wales - Labour's heartland, again where they should never have lost popularity at all - is a crucial sign of the well-being of the party in general. These election results suggest that they health of that party is damaged at the very least. But that's nothing compared to what happened North of the Border in Scotland.

There, the Labour party appear to have handed overall control of the Scottish parliament to the SNP on a silver platter. And this is Scotland, for fuck's sake, where the last Labour Prime Minister was born. If they can't win here, then they are going to struggle to make any headway whatsoever in far more hostile parts of the UK. Furthermore, what is particularly damaging to Miliband Minor is that he campaigned in Scotland, and he's been rewarded with a big fat "fuck you" from the Scottish voters.

He also campaigned for AV, and guess what happened there? Oh, the movement was defeated conclusively at the polls. Miliband Minor seems to have inherited that inverted Midas Touch of his former boss - everything he touches turns to shit. In fact, this t-shirt (via Guido) seems very harsh but also extremely apt:

With results like these, I'd be surprised if Ed Miliband is still leading the Labour party come the next election. In fact, his best bet to lead Labour into that election would be if the coalition collapsed right now. Of course, he could do something extraordinary to turn his fortunes around, but he gives no indications that he is willing to do so, or even that he feels he needs to do so. He's just waiting for the electoral pendulum to swing back to Labour and install him as PM. These results show that just isn't happening.

In fact, we could use this as a litmus test of how serious the Labour party is about winning the next election: they will show they are serious when they get a credible leader, capable of communicating and coming up with some sort of genuinely different, and popular, policies. In other words, when they get a leader other than Ed Miliband.