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28th September 2010
JUST A MINUTE, MR YOUNG ED MILIBAND!
Sean O’Grady at The Independent has it absolutely right. “Cobblers”, he neatly puts it.
Excerpt:
Just by the way, can someone (me) say to Ed about how awful all this “new generation” cobblers is, as if there was some necessary merit in the under 40s taking over politics.
FIGHTBACK TIME
There is NO merit in the under 40s running anything. In fact that prospect is chock full of demerits. It is high time politics was grasped back from the hands of the immature and shallow of thinking. From such as Mili-E.
This, by Ed Miliband, was pure ageism. Perhaps surprising to some in the supposedly politically correct Labour Party. The Labour party of the election winner Tony Blair who always, always, always reached out to all generations. Even Gordon Brown reached out, when he thought of it. Or at least he never committed this discriminatory error.
A NEW GENERATION?
Who? Why? What? His predecessors as party leaders are not exactly doddering old codgers lounging around in their armchairs. On second thoughts, Mili-E has probably got them turning in their graves over this. I can but hope so, and expect to see them rise again soon to haunt the whippersnapper.
Tony Blair was actually all of FIVE months older than Ed Miliband is today when the former first became party leader. I never once heard him referring to his party as a “New Generation”. HIS New Labour party was for ALL generations.
Of course Ed might have had an alternative target in view. He might have been suggesting that big brother David is actually past it. After all he’s all of FORTY FIVE, FGS!
To be honest, I don’t think I’ve heard a worse speech for positioning, repetition, or deviation. A touch of hesitation before speaking would have been useful. But thinking, clearly, wasn’t in LITTLE MILI’S script. As wasn’t any positive reference to those new OLD Labourites who aren’t exactly of the younger generation. Those who incidentally can be relied upon to turn out to vote; those who make up the bulk of every political party’s membership and activists. Those over 50, even over 60.
This speech was nothing less than disgraceful. Miliband D should be demanding a recount on that election business the Unions rigged the other day.
O’Grady also says in his “Miliband’s ‘new generation’ cobblers” –
Imagine if Ed Miliband had got up in his leader’s speech and said “let the message go out that the whites are in charge now” or “the torch has passed, and it’s us blokes who’ll be running this show from now on. Goodbye, ladies”.
It is AGEISM cobblers. And if the Labour party had a scintilla of honour at least ONE of those interviewed by the broadcasters and news journalists would have pointed this out.
FIFTEEN TIMES HE SAID “NEW GENERATION”.
Why? Who does he think he is? Does the 40-year-old Miliband, who has been around in politics for more than 20 years think he is fresh out of high school? Untarnished by the slings and arrows? Innocent by his own dis-association? Does he think he is Pitt the Younger? If so, he should read up. Even today Ed Miliband is 16 years older than that particular PM was when he took power. Judging by this astonishingly bad effort today Mili-Ed will be 140 before he gets anywhere near sufficiently mature to run a country.
I suggest Ed M. needs to be reported to the Equal Opportunities Commission and asked to explain himself and then apologise to the public of ALL ages. It is not in the interests of democracy that a political leader tries to instil in the public the notion that age should make any difference to one’s human or political value.
And this moan of mine is before I get to lambast him over his Iraq betrayal.
WE WERE WRONG RIGHT ABOUT IRAQ
It was most instructive that the camera was on David Miliband, Alistair Darling and Andy Burnham as Mili-E said “we were wrong about Iraq”. NOT one of them joined the audience’s applause. Alan Johnson was behind them. His hands could not be seen but there was no movement suggestive of applause.
Mili-E: “Iraq was an issue that divided our party and our country. Many sincerely believed that the world faced a real threat. I criticise nobody faced with making the toughest of decisions and I honour our troops who fought and died there. But I do believe that we were wrong. Wrong to take Britain to war and we need to be honest about that.”
They were wrong to allow you, Mili-E to take over their party. We need to be honest about that.
Jack Straw said in a broadcast interview that he disagreed with Ed M on Iraq, saying that decisions have to be taken prospectively, without the benefit of hindsight.
With the benefit of hindsight a LOT of things would be different today. Very different.
JUST SO YOU KNOW
The Sun’s Trevor Kavanagh said at the end of PM tonight that he “knew” that David Miliband would announce that he would not serve in Mili-E’s shadow cabinet. I suppose he’s realised that at 45 he’s far too old.
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