Monday 19 August 2013

Some advice for Ed Miliband

Everyone in the Labour party is offering advice to Ed this summer so I thought it might help if I did so too.

Clearly I lack the impact of Lord Prescott’s unhelpful column in the Sunday Mirror yesterday [paraphrase = "fire the shadow team who have not got stuck in" or the views of Lord Glasman and Tom Watson MP, who have helpfully told the Mail their views that Ed should grow up and apologise for the mess left when he was a Minister under Gordon Brown: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2396234/Milibands-guru-tells-grow-Lord-handed-peerage-Labour-leader-calls-hes-big-run-country.html

Ken Livingstone thinks Lord Prescott is wrong and the Shadow Cabinet are all on holiday.
The former London mayor tells the Evening Standard this afternoon that Prezza should ‘retire – you have had your turn, you screwed it up, don’t try and wreck it for others’.
Tom Harris thinks the party needs to stop talking tofu.

One of the best writers in the party, Harris argues on the Telegraph website this afternoon that Labour’s drive to lower the voting age to 16 is ‘exactly the kind of middle-class dinner party issue that tofu eaters throughout the country get really excited about’. He also suggests that ‘Labour is starting to move away from talking about real life issues to talking instead about irrelevant, niche subjects that will impress and affect nobody’.
Ed Balls is… er…not been seen all summer?
Ed Balls, never a man to keep his opinion anywhere other than firmly on his sleeve, seems to be keeping quiet about how great Ed is at the moment.

My view would be simple:
- admit that the Coalition are on the right track to getting the country back in business and jobs,
- agree or come up with a real policy on welfare and immigration reforms,
- work with us in the national interest and don't spend all your time opposing everything
That would be a start.