Ed Miliband; Labour party conference

[Sony Walkman Prophecies]

What did everyone think of this? Are you convinced by Miliband and his new nu labour, or do you think it's all a shitshow for people with short memories (and Ed Izzard)?

[SockPuppet]

b.

[Mr Eggs]

A shitshow.  He's pissed off the unions ( Who block voted him into his job ) and he has a scary face. I give him 12 months before he's forced out to make room for his better looking brother.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

I gave a feeling the coalition will grow unpopular enough that he might just be Prime Minister. It depends on Labour playing the long game and getting behind him.

Lack of policies isn't really relevant this far away from an election. Competence is. Having an ability to be prophetic and populist at the same time. He does have a lot of those qualities but is in a nerdy poor communicator package. By 2015 people may not care about that.

[BlodwynPig]

What's all this "everyone will play a part" - I thought Big Society was the Tory thing?

[biggytitbo]

Sounded like a greatest hits mash-up of recent Tony Blair and David Cameron speeches unconvincingly whined by a nasal git.

[Lee Van Cleef]

He was a lecturer at Harvard.

[King of scurf]

A shitshow.  He's pissed off the unions ( Who block voted him into his job )

The union block vote was abolished in 1993

[monkfromhavana]

I kinda like him. I can't imagine him leading the country, but unlike Cameron & Blair i also don't think he's planning on burning poor people to keep the heater in his chicken shed working.

A fairly competent speech, and like S-S said, it's too soon to be bogged down in policies, especially when the coalition are shooting themselves in the foot every other day. The unions are broadly onside with him..anyway who are the unions going to give their members money to if not Labour? The Tories? The Lib-Dems?

Can't imagine him in crunch talks sat around a table with Putin though.

[Mr Eggs]

The union block vote was abolished in 1993

Oh yes. sorry. It's called the 'Union affiliate vote' now.  http://www2.labour.org.uk/leadership-affiliates

[King of scurf]

And it isn't a block vote, as the table shows

[Mr Eggs]

Correct. i was wrong and lazy. Union power is entirely responsible for Ed beating Dave tho.

[mobias]

Not a fan of him. I prefer his brother even if he is more new labour. The unions definitely voted the wrong one in, he's clearly seen as unelectable in the eyes of swing voters and that's crucial. How quickly labour can get rid of him will determine their future. Labour generally at the moment are utterly uninspiring. Very few of the shadow cabinet seem compitent or particularly wise and articulate. Sad days because they really could be making the most of a truly awful coalition government.

[Nuclear Optimism]

I don't mind Ed. It's all the other dickheads who are hanging around from the last government that annoy me, Balls and Harman and the rest. If Milliband kicked those fuckers out and got some new people who aren't tainted by the past, then he'd be better.

[small_world]

Isn't he the light guy?
The person they put in place to let the opposition get themselves in to the shit?
He's (his party chose someone who is) deliberately weak, so they will sit relatively quietly for a couple of years, then ramp things up, bring in a strong leader and make a play for it.
It's like the Madison.

[Clatty McCutcheon]

it's too soon to be bogged down in policies, especially when the coalition are shooting themselves in the foot every other day.

That's only a view that makes sense if you view the election purely as a popularity contest which you have to play a tactical game to win.  One of the many problems with the modern Labour Party (and contemporary politics in general) is the willingness of politicians to say what they think people want to hear to get elected and then simply blunder around reacting to things if and when they do get elected.  Call me idealistic, but I would expect someone trying to revive a Labour Party that's dying on its arse to have a coherent set of policies that reflect some kind of consistent ideaology, and for that ideaology to be a true social democratic one and not one cribbed from a Tory politician of the 1870s (all the Disraeli, one nation, patrician stuff).

[Mark Steels Stockbroker]

At this point in history it's irrelevant who's in charge of Britain. Even Boris could be a contender. So yeah, whatever. If Ed had any ideas of running on an anti-austerity package, he'd soon enough be told to change his plans, just like Francois Hollande. The parties are just different ad agencies competing to sell the same underlying product that none of them can change.

[Big Jack McBastard]

Sounded like a greatest hits mash-up of recent Tony Blair and David Cameron speeches unconvincingly whined by a nasal git.

Not to get too bogged down in how physically repellent he is, but wasn't he supposed to have had deviated septum surgery (or something) not too long back to sort out his whiny voice? I'd have demanded my money back.

At this point in history it's irrelevant who's in charge of Britain. Even Boris could be a contender. So yeah, whatever. If Ed had any ideas of running on an anti-austerity package, he'd soon enough be told to change his plans, just like Francois Hollande. The parties are just different ad agencies competing to sell the same underlying product that none of them can change

I know I've said this before but... Armed revolution anyone?

[Mark Steels Stockbroker]

I know I've said this before but... Armed revolution anyone?

CaB could never form a government as we'd never agree which series of TTOI was best.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

He's (his party chose someone who is) deliberately weak, so they will sit relatively quietly for a couple of years, then ramp things up, bring in a strong leader and make a play for it.
It's like the Madison.

You'd have probably thought that about Cameron though.

[Pepotamo1985]

Sounded like a greatest hits mash-up of recent Tony Blair and David Cameron speeches unconvincingly whined by a nasal git.

+1

At this point in history it's irrelevant who's in charge of Britain. The parties are just different ad agencies competing to sell the same underlying product that none of them can change.

+100

[Beagle 2]

I think he was starting to lose the plot a bit by this stage...

"...and so the other day, and this is an absolutely true story, I decided that to get away from it all, the speechwriting, all of that, I'd go for a walk with my three year old son, Daniel. It was an absolutely gorgeous late summer day. So we went out, I wanted to go to the park. Here's the first thing he said to me: "Daddy, I can help you with your speech." I was like not you as well! He is a Miliband after all. And he said to me: "Daddy, you can't do it on your own." This is absolutely true, and I said "well that's a good Labour insight, you can't do it all your own. Daniel what do you want in my speech?" He said "I want dinosaurs! I want dinosaurs, I want flying dinosaurs! I want dinosaurs that eat people daddy!" I said, "No Daniel..."

[Beagle 2]

Having said that, it would have been fucking brilliant if he'd have walked out and said:

I stand here before you today as a flying dinosaur that eats people. Literally a flying dinosaur that eats people. But a flying dinosaur that eats people that's right for Britain. A tolerant Britain. A Great Britain. A Great Britain full of flying dinosaurs that eat people. People just like you. Because you are also a flying dinosaur that eats people. We all are. We all are LEAVE ME ALONE I'M DOING IT I'M DOING IT

[olliebean]

That's only a view that makes sense if you view the election purely as a popularity contest which you have to play a tactical game to win.

That's pretty much what it is, these days, isn't it? Which is why, if he ever throws his hat in the ring, we're almost certainly going to end up with Boris as PM. I'm not saying it's right, or that it isn't massively depressing, but hey, people are idiots.

[Dead kate moss]

He reminded me of the Karate Kid. We didn't get to see the montage where he was slowly trained to be tougher. No specific policies at this point, and I'm sure if they do get in they will be a shower of cunts who change the status quo not one fucking iota, but the Con-Dems have to go, so he's The Chosen One I suppose. Can't believe that he was the best choice available, but it's all a fucking joke innit.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

There's been not much discussion about it but the cock-up of the rail operator tendering process is a straight-forward matter of incompetent government. Justine Greening was stonewalling any notion of their being errors in the DfT's process only to admit that...err..there was.

Any party interested in renationalising the railways would have a fucking field day on this classic example of incompetence and possibly corruption too. Anyone out there?

[Sony Walkman Prophecies]

Having said that, it would have been fucking brilliant if he'd have walked out and said:

Crying with laughter from that. <3

But yeah, personally...I thought he'd lost I thought he'd lost it from the moment he appeared on stage: "where's the speech you're asking? there is no speech! I'm here to talk to you directly about what matters". Eerily reminiscent of David Brent "I'm a maverick yeah? When I come to these
conferences, I don't play by the rules." *smirk to camera*

[Zetetic]

There's been not much discussion about it but the cock-up of the rail operator tendering process is a straight-forward matter of incompetent government. Justine Greening was stonewalling any notion of their being errors in the DfT's process only to admit that...err..there was.

I thought that Tory position has changed to it being a straight-forward matter of incompetent government, but importantly place the blame firmly in the implementation of policy by the Civil Service. Which appears, at this point to be partly true.

However, that does ignore how troublesome the policy - of 5,000 year[nb]Something like that[/nb] long franchises - is to implement successfully. I'm not sure that counts as an incompetent policy, even if it's probably a bad one.

Any party interested in renationalising the railways would have a fucking field day on this classic example of incompetence and possibly corruption too.

The collapse of the East Coast Mainline franchise, and its subsequent replacement by Directly Operated Railways would seem an even better example to point to.

Edit: You'd hope this particular example would start a slightly different debate on how Government contracting is actually quite hard to do well (and so, yes, more direct control is sometimes the lesser of two evils). It seems to be turning into "West coast rail debacle blamed on Whitehall brain drain", which might be true but isn't really the fundamental issue.

[TrevorDistance]

Having said that, it would have been fucking brilliant if he'd have walked out and said:

that's how David Icke heard the speech I imagine