Saturday 25 September 2010

Tah-dah, here's our new leader.

So, yeah, Labour has Ed Miliband as its brand new leader, in an insanely close election.

It's been a very long campaign, and it's kind of nice for it all to be over. I didn't get who I voted for, as some might have noticed, but I'm more than happy for Ed to be leader. I had David as first choice, and as he walked out with a beaming smile I was sure he'd won it. Never play poker against a Miliband is the lesson for everyone.


Already I hear the cries of 'Red Ed' from ConservativeHome which is frankly hilarious. The fact that he overwhelmingly won the union vote is completely inconsequential. First, the party was founded by unions and exists to support the working man so it's only right they have a third of the vote, are people suggesting union members are all communist monsters?

Second, there is no block voting, which means the unions that voted for Ed are individual members. Teachers, nurses, police, shop workers.. normal people. And let's remember, Tony Blair won a massive union majority in his election, and I don't think there'd be many calling him 'Red Tony'. The idea that Conservative's are happy and we've shot ourselves in the foot by not electing the one they thought was better would be laughable if it wasn't meant to be a serious argument. They were hardly likely to come out and say 'Oh shit, the good one won, now we're screwed!' were they!

The idea that Ed is a far left leader is plain wrong. His ideas are progressive, they are centre-left, but a 'lurch to the left' this is not.

The highest form of flattery - When your opponents feel the need to attack you with nothing but ideological names.
The great thing about this contest is that we haven't completely destroyed ourselves, which was a real possibility if people had resorted to back stabbing and massive ideological arguments which tore the party in two. And the fact that any of the four losers could easily work in the shadow cabinet without any trouble is a testament to how Labour has stopped the back-biting of the past.

Now we have to wait to see who's going to be in the shadow cabinet. I think the key ones to watch will be whether Ed Balls gets his Shadow Chancellor spot and where David slots in. I used to think it was probably wiser to keep Balls away from the chancellorship but have completely changed my mind after the last few weeks where he's impressed so many people with his economic intelligence and different vision for the future. Ed was right in his victory speech, Ed Balls has ripped Michael Gove to shreds in the past months, and will beat Osborne to a bloody pulp.

As for David, he's clearly more than qualified for any of the top jobs. He might want to keep his foreign office mandate, or he may want to go for another top job, maybe Home Secretary?

It's the end of one contest, and the beginning of trying to win an election.

2 comments:

Liam said...

A back door victory for Red Ed, I heard Cameron is extending his lease on No. 10 for at least another 5 years after 2015.

Chris said...

I love 'Red Ed', his dad might have been 'Red Ralph' but there's nothing Ed's suggested as policy so far which the coalition haven't courted with. Graduate tax, keeping 50p rate, putting Trident in the spending review. Hardly a Marxist is he?

And as for back door, he wasn't my first preference but them's the rules, if you win you win, simple. Most of MiliD's supporters had him as 2nd pref. anyway, so there's no-one with a real axe to grind.