More thoughts on Ed Miliband

It seems again that Ed Miliband is trying to position himself to the Left. His essay for the Fabian Society seeks to distance himself from NL: now seen as a political train wreck. A casual reading of the essay would leave you with the impression that here is the future leader of the Left in Britain. He does provide a critique of the electoral strategy of the NL years in which the Tory electoral base was courted while the Labour “core vote” was taken for granted. In its own terms his analysis is quite reasonable.

However when it turns to policy and organisation everything becomes a bit blurred…remember this is a person pitching to lead the Labour Party and pitching on the basis that he is the Left alternative. Without something more definite you do think “well, is this guy going to deliver”. There seems to me to be parallels with Neil Kinnock. Kinnock was presented as the soft left alternative when he sought the leadership in the 1980′s. Kinnock turned out to be the witch hunter who opened the way for Blair and Brown to impose NL. Ed does not have the campaigning background that inspires trust. He is someone who rose through Party connexion, patronage and towing the NL line.

He was in America in 2003 (see New Statesman interview). There was a large, dynamic and lively anti-war movement there at the time. So if Ed really opposed the invasion of Iraq in 2003 why didn’t he join the anti-war movement in the States, his views would have precisely been well known if he had shown some courage and voiced his opposition to the war (and why say he was opposed to war in Iraq now…? Cynical and opportunistic gesture..methinks).

Why didn’t Ed come out in public to support the Vestas workers? Yet the essay is full of worthiness about both involving trade unionists and advancing the Green agenda. What will Ed do when workers take action against austerity? Write worthy essays and bluster while waiting for 5 years to pass? What is his strategy in taking on the Con/Dems and the turbo-charged cuts to the public sector and welfare state?

From the pen or keyboard of a different sort of politician the same ideas as put forward in Ed’s essay might but worth voting for. The question to ask is whether Ed is the real deal or yet another carpet-bagger going for left-wing votes?

Numbness

To misquote Wilde’s Lady Bracknell, to lose one parent and only to find out 2 months after she died may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose both in a space of 4 months looks like carelessness. I have to laugh, find sarcastic humour or else I do cry. I found out through a google search (gawd bless google) the other day that my dad had died, he seemingly died on holiday in France. He was buried during the first week of August the same day I was visiting the bereavement counsellor regarding the death of my mum. I feel numb again, listless, sleepy, sluggish and depressed. I didn’t get on with them but knowing now that I will never see them again, even when estranged from them I knew they were alive in the world. Also feel a gaping loss, partly because they are dead and partly because I grieve for something I never had. My get up and go activism has diminished for the time being. GP has given me anti-depressants (that was before finding out about my dad) and is organising more counselling for me.