Ed Miliband is an Idiot

Rhoda Klapp

The popint is standing together. The point is having the rally and the demo, and invoking all those images from the past. If the cause is just a teeeeeny bit lacking in credibility or in fact justice, well, that doesn't maatter. We stand together in the demand that somebody else pays so we can carry on as before.

Edward McLaughlin

Very well said Alex. His stumbling delivery is embarrassing and totally unconvincing. His face shows the panic of one who has realised that he does not know where someone else's words are taking him.

Such a display of remove from reality, caters perfectly to the idiots who pretend that Labour could get us out of the mess they created.

The only surprise is that Nelson Mandela's name was not shoehorned into this cloying mess.

John Levett

He is an idiot. What does that say about the people who elected him leader? In turn, what does that say about the people who voted for the people who voted him leader?

TrevorsDen

Miliband looks even less of an adult than William Hague did 30 years ago.

He makes Sarah Palin look intellectual.

Elliot B

"George Osborne's plans are really just a souped-up version of Alastair Darling's own proposals"

So what? It's that "souping up" that's the issue. While it's hard to deny that many in crowd will of been deficit-deniers, Miliband/Balls' own stated approach is continue what Darling started, while opposing the rate at which Osbourne is making cuts as an economic risk.

PropertyMongel

No more council tax!
No more council tax!

daniel maris

If you can get 250,000 people among the notoriously apathetic Brits out on the streets of London you are entitled to a bit of hyperbole. I think a more accurate historical reference would ahve been the Chartists who did hold similar massed rallies in London's parks and commons.

I think you know nothing of economics or mass psychology if you can't see the difference between what is implied by those red and blue lines. Osborne, with that annoying assumption of innate ability carried in the tone of his voice, has managed to spread completely unnecessary fear and panic across the kitchen tables of the land as people consider their financial futures and the month's credit card bill. The last 9 months have seen people in the public sector, and the spouses of those people, having to give serious consideratino to the threat of redundancy. That in turn has meant they have postponed big spending decisions. Consumer confidence has slumped and with it sales on the high street.

We will see all this played out in the next quarter's figures - which he and the rest of the panicking Tory high command must be dreading.

He didn't have to do it that way. On paper the difference between the two lines is not that great. We would be dealing with the deficit had we followed Darling's trajectory.

Rather than spreading fear of redundancy across the land, he could have imposed a recruitment freeze across the public sector with broadly the same effects.

Fergus Pickering

daniel, whenever posts are VERY long we expecy bollocks and, by God, we get it. You talk as if everybody worked for the government, but only 20% of people do. You talk as if the Daling cuts would have had NO downside. Well, we'll never know, will we, because nobody has ever told us, or indeed is likely to, what they would have been. Now your views of wind farms and all that fall into place. You live in la-la land, my friend, and there the two Eds reign for ever

merlinthepig

Alex, it's a red letter day. For once I agree with you.

Miliband: "Our cause is a different one". No shit. And one of considerably less importance than those he has the termerity to compare it with.

Nicholas

Oh do give it a rest daniel maris. You hold a left wing opinion not the secret of the universe.

250,000 communist and leftist activists and a bunch of anarchist thugs - not "people". Milliband the Clown was not "struggling" when he and his idiot chums were running the country into the ground for 13 years. Standing on shoulders is about right, but standing on the neck of truth and freedom is closer.

Ooooh, the public sector parasites with gold plated pensions have to postpone their "big spending decisions". Shock, horror. Well at least they don't have to fight in the trenches, endure the Blitz or go ashore with the first wave on D-Day, eh?

What we face we face because of New Labour and the idiots like you who vote for them and want to repeat the same old mistakes.

daniel maris

Nicholas,

No doubt you have some personal attachment to the capitalist system, maybe in the shape of a large number of shares personally held. For the rest of us, capitalism is just a means to an end, which is our personal betterment and the betterment of society more generally.

I am not a Leftist. I am a populist. I am interested in what benefits the mass of people not an elite of capitalists or an elite of bien pensant intellectuals. At any point in history you can take the side of the people against the elites. No nonsense about secrets of the universe. Only a beneficiary of the current set-up could look on with equanimity at the assault on people's pay and conditions, and in more general terms their economic security.

Things have gone seriously wrong...not just here but in every major country outside the Asia, whether they had a socialist or a conservative government.

You don't have any answers beyond "Trust George Osborne", which for the rest of us is like saying "Trust the Secretary of the Bullingdon Club to make wise decisions in the interest of the public at large."

And that's a story in itself isn't it - how that photo has been made to "disappear".

DavidDP

"a more accurate historical reference would ahve been the Chartists "

The Chartists were marching for democracy. These people were marching to demand other people's money.

There is no comparison.

DavidDP

"Miliband/Balls' own stated approach is continue what Darling started"

Perhaps you could link to a cut that they've supported then? There has to be quite a few if what you say is correct, as the difference in spending is actually quite small.

And did Ed tell the crowd that he supported cuts?

Erica Blair

Alex Massie is an idiot.

Just thought I'd mention it.

Charles

"a more accurate historical refence would have been the Chartists"

From what I remember of history, I thought the Chartists achieved the square root of F all.

(And yes, I know that 5 of their six pledges are now fulfilled but - a bit like the Monster Raving Loony Party's first manifesto - it wasn't really anything to do with them)

Simon Stephenson.

Why RedEd, Balls and the other Labour leaders are having to go through such verbal gymnastics in stating their position is that they are continuing to have to live the huge lie of the period since 1997 - the lie that it was no part of their intention to convert us from a medium-tax country into a high-tax country.

This is how the lie works:-

1. Boost apparent economic growth by stimulating a debt explosion, and by failing to control the overstatement of actual, achieved wealth-creation that is a feature of economies wallowing in too much money.

2. Expand public expenditure by as much as can possibly be achieved without causing an outcry about tax rates. Do this by whatever means possible, including maximising the use of off balance-sheet finance, no matter how much of a cost premium this entails.

3. Build the structures, administrations and legalities of state provision in such a way as to make it as difficult as possible for any future government to disestablish any part of it. Focus on maximising the number of people who can claim an obligation on the part of the State to employ them, to pay their salaries, to provide them with whatever resources they desire. Don't let state provision be looked at in the abstract - personalise it - increase the number of people to whom it is a necessity, not a perk.

Then, when the boom can be sustained no more, and we slump into bust:-

4. Pursue the line that the fiscal deficit must be rectified, that maybe public spending went up too quickly, but what's done is done - it's just not practicable to reduce spending to match revenue, so the only way forward is to increase revenues through a massive increase of tax rates. Sorry and all that, but you can see the impossible position we're in. Matters beyond our control .... nobody could have foreseen this .... worst crisis in 135 years .... irresponsible bankers to blame .... sub-prime - idiotic policy in USA .... etc. etc.

Titus Salt

Erica Blair is an idiot.

Just thought I'd mention it.

John Dubai

Very nice analysis Simon Stephenson.

Daniel Maris: you say this is Osborne's fault for making people panic. Surely it is the shrill hysteria of Grauniad and their cohorts which invokes the panic. The 2bn difference between Tory and Labour spending plans is, contrary to what you assert, statistically quite insignificant, given the deficit is around 145 bn. 2/145 = 1.3%

That's just the deficit, not even the national debt...

Simon Mennie

And a very useful idiot too.

Simon Stephenson.

John Dubai : 1.22pm

Thank you.

The Labour policy, of course, is out of the same stable as the EU policy to force more rapid political integration through the deliberate fomenting of a financial catastrophe via the Euro.

What allows this sort of thing to happen, in my view, is the cultural change that has caused most of us no longer to see lying as corrupt, unethical or harmful - rather, to see it as perhaps slightly distasteful, but really just part and parcel of the behaviour essential to hacking ones way through life.

The behaviour that this cultural change has validated is the realisation that one can live totally in fabrication - that one can move from a position where a lie is an occasional weapon for use when the truth is too uncomfortable or inadequate, to one where the lie is the norm, because the truth never carries the same weight of advantage as the well-constructed lie.

Politicians, of course, have not been immune to this change of behaviour, but it is more noticeable amongst those on the left, because deceit, fabrication and false-flag infiltration have always been in the left's bag of party-tricks. Over the last 20 - 30 years they've just moved the whole process to a higher and more sophisticated level.

It's as though we've taken the view that the grim necessities of wartime protection are also a good way of operating in peacetime.

Simon Stephenson.

daniel maris : 5.22am

"I am not a Leftist. I am a populist."

Populist, eh? Is this what leftists are calling themselves these days, in the hope that the not-very-interested may mistakenly form the view that they're less poisonous than they actually are?

daniel maris

Charles -

Every one of the Chartists' demands has been met bar annual election of parliament - which would actually be a very good idea.

Simon Stephenson -

I think your attempt to characterise everyone who disagrees with you as poisonous and wanting to set up Gulags is
ridiculous. Agression and invective are
no substitute for argument and inquiry.

John Dubai - I am not saying it was just Osborne's words - it is the actions as well and the actions and words of the more idiotic members of the Cabinet, like Pickles. Millions of people feel an axe is hanging over their head and it ain't gonna go away for at least another three years.

Fergus Pickering -

You are right to remind us that only 20% of workers work in the public sector. But remember, millions of jobs have been privatised - they are still subject to cuts as well. Millions of people work in charities and third sector agencies that are only nominally independent of the state. They also are facing cuts e.g. housing charities. Then there are the range of private sector companies very much dependent on public sector expenditure in whatever field it might be.

I think the number of people directly affected is probably closer to 35% of the workforce.

Occasional Ostrich

"will of been"?

FFS!

Simon Stephenson.

daniel maris : 3.22pm

"I think your attempt to characterise everyone who disagrees with you as poisonous and wanting to set up Gulags is
ridiculous."

You wish!

You'll find that I disagree with most people, to a greater or lesser extent, and that the only ones I describe as poisonous are those whom I believe to be poisonous.

That this belief is normally associated with deceitful, intolerant, narcissistic, authoritarian left-wingers is probably something to do with the type of behaviour that they, far more than people of any other political affiliation, have chosen to adopt.

If you want to see an example of disagreement without Gulag-assertion, look through my discussions with Tom Pride on this thread:-

http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/6805583/inflationary-troubles-ahead-of-osbornes-budget.thtml

Tom Pride

Simon Stephenson.
March 27th, 2011 5:56pm and preceding

Back on top form again!

Tom Pride

daniel maris
March 27th, 2011 5:22am

“For the rest of us, capitalism is just a means to an end, which is our personal betterment and the betterment of society more generally.”

“I am interested in what benefits the mass of people not an elite of capitalists or an elite of bien pensant intellectuals.”

When you write this, you are really coming from the same place as Simon Stephenson and others on this blog.

The differences and hostility arise when you start inferring:

“Only a beneficiary of the current set-up could look on with equanimity at the assault on people's pay and conditions, and in more general terms their economic security.”

“No doubt you have some personal attachment to the capitalist system, maybe in the shape of a large number of shares personally held.”

You don’t have to have a significant investment in the capitalist system to prefer it (with all its drawbacks) over other systems nor do I or others look on with equanimity as individuals are confronted with the harsh realities you refer to. I feel fury at the persons who brought us to this situation and who fooled and continue to mislead, proclaiming that the fantasies of Brown / Balls / Labour can continue indefinitely.

If you could be a little more generous to the motives of others here and ease up on the tone (and the strident advocacy of your non-nuclear preference), you would have a more receptive audience.

daniel maris

Simon Stephenson,

You seem to be confusing assertion with argument.

I assert that your policies will lead to disaster. Do you agree? No, I didn't think you would either.

If you want to persuade people that following Alistair Darling's deficit reduction plan will lead to Gulags in Britain you have to argue the point: suggest the steps by which this will happen. So far you have released a lot of invective into the wild, but not shown in any plausible way how we would get from A to B.

If you want to be taken seriously you have to offer some plausible scenarios. Otherwise, people will assume you are a "huffer-puffer".

Nicholas

Wrong again maris. I don't have any shares.

Simon Stephenson.

daniel maris : 7.04pm

"If you want to persuade people that following Alistair Darling's deficit reduction plan will lead to Gulags in Britain you have to argue the point:"

You don't seem to have read my 1.50pm post to this thread:=

http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/6817243/miliband-is-marching-to-the-wrong-drum.thtml

in which I set out how I believe the Darling Plan to be no more than a smokescreen and an irrelevance to what would have happened if Labour had been returned to power last May.

So discussing likely progress under the Darling Plan is pointless, considering it never would have happened, and therefore I have never claimed that implementation of it would have led to the gulags.

However, another five years of Brown/Balls/RedEd in power - now that's a dufferent matter.

Simon Stephenson.

Tom Pride : 7.02pm

Well written.

Why I think we are in such a mess is that politics, in the sense of a constructive clash of views and interpretations of events, has become almost completely dysfunctional over the last 25 years.

To my mind, the one factor that brought about this dysfunctionality was the growing inability to sustain the myth that State direction was an adequate alternative to free enterprise as a system in which wealth is created. As the Soviet empire collapsed in disarray, the authoritarian left had the opportunity to concede what had become obvious - that socialism was always going to lag behind free enterprise in terms of wealth production - and to move the political contest into the more constructive area of determining what societies need, beyond raw wealth, to make them successful, and how socialist ideas can help to fulfil these needs. If they had chosen this path, we would have had 25 years of fruitful political activity, instead of which we have lived in a wasteland.

The reason for this wasteland is that the authoritarian left have refused to concede what is obvious, and in order to counter the stronger and stronger evidence ranged against them, they have resorted to sophistry and relativism as a means of deconstructing the evidence. (Of course, neither sophistry nor relativism is relevant in arguments where straightforwardness and absolutism show the left to be in front.) But, naturally, two can play at the same game, and if the left are unwilling to concede any imperfection in their model for society, then the capitalist right are going to push the totality of their cause with the same level of obstinacy. Result - stalemate, with no sign of an olive branch being offered by either side.

Not until it is realised that neither end of the spectrum offers anywhere near an optimal solution will we come to recognise that there are certain parts of human nature which require personal freedom in order to flourish, while there are other parts, unwelcome and contrary to social wellbeing, which require imposed control and regulation. We need to look at each of these different aspects of nature as separate considerations, not apply an override to cover all of them indiscriminately. And we need to understand that no one is either all-good or all-bad - we all have both good and bad behavioural triggers, and this is something we need to deal with as a reality, not brush away by pretending it's not the case.

Daniel Deyl

I don't know about idiots. The video shows a man thoroughly uncomfortable with both where he is and what he is saying. That should go to his credit, given where he was and what he was saying.

Edward McLaughlin

Occasional Ostrich

Thank you for pointing out what has become something of a trend here recently. More than a mere typo or any tendency toward slack attention to detail, the 'will of/should of' etc, construct signals a rather more fundamental deficiency in self-awareness and control.

The fact that this trend has accompanied an increase in contributions from leftist trolls, is possibly coincidence.

fifer

Ed's not seen much TV recently - specifically the point so ably demonstrated by Glenn Beck, that arguing points of narrow self interest in which the majority disagree with you, whilst comparing ones self to the great figures of the past, is a cast iron way to look like an arse.

michael

My mate's 40, just been made redundant from a quango having worked for them for 20 years (three of which he was sponsored for a degree) he was originally expecting a payout of six times salary C.£240,000. however the poor sod got clobbered by changes in legislation so only came out with £80,000
...thing is he's going to have to have to get another job and make it last 15 years before his platinum pension kicks in .
--hard times indeed.

tom

No mention of those who marched for fox-hunting, or against the war in Iraq.

daniel maris

Is Miliband the idiot - or is George Osborne?

As I predicted before Christmas, consumer confidence is collapsing. The effects are now showing through e.g. Dixon's 11per cent decline in sales in four months.

These are precisely the sort of spending decisions that are being put off since Osborne has spread fear and dismay throughout the land.