Brother v Brother
By I’m surprised that it took this long, but a story in The Independent today suggests that David Miliband is highly critical of his brother Ed’s leadership of the Labour Party, and is waiting in the wings for Ed’s ineluctable failure.
David is not alone in allegedly suggesting that Ed is perhaps not doing the best of jobs (I agree, for one). There are two valid critiques. First, Labour have yet to articulate an alternative vision or concrete policy proposals about, well, anything. There is a certain rationality to this. With the coalition not exactly popular, and Labour leading in the polls for close to a year now, an argument can be made that it’s best to not have a precise alternative, as precision crystallises opinion. Second, Ed Miliband has not been at all effective during PM’s Questions on Wednesdays. This is unfortunate as the coalition have a lot to answer for, and their policies should be effectively exploited for electoral and public opinion gain. Instead, Ed is making David Cameron look even more prime ministerial.
All this said, I don’t think there’s much at all to this story. Journalists would love for there to be a Miliband rift, as it would fill the long obsolete Blair v Brown narrative that drove coverage of the Labour Party since 1994. Indeed, a series of stories came out late last week about the Brown plot to oust Blair; the supporting cast included Ed as a chief architect in the Brown camp, with David a leader of the Blair forces. Hence now we have Blair David Miliband exacting revenge on Brown Ed Miliband.
