Ed Miliband isn’t sad, he’s tragic
Jerry Hayes
ED: The Milibands and the Making of a Labour Leader by Mehdi Hasan and James Macintyre is a much better book than it has been given credit for.
The making of a really good biography requires research, insight and some good gossip. The trouble is that Ed Miliband has not done anything particularly interesting except to be Gordon Brown’s bitch and trample all over his older brother to become leader of the Labour Party.
That is why I would recommend the reader skim through the first few chapters, which basically come to the conclusion that his friends thought he was dull and geeky. The splendid Vincent Graff used to co-present an LBC show when they were sprogs and came to the conclusion that Ed was, ‘very nasal, very serious, very focused and quite dull…there was never any laughter in the Green room, it was almost like he was doing a job’.
And this is the trouble with Ed. He spent his childhood arguing politics with his mum, dad, brother and the good and the great. He doesn’t have something that Dennis Healey said was so essential for a successful politician: a hinterland. The poor fellow just has no other interests in any else but politics, policy and the Labour Party. That’s not sad, it’s tragic.
The only interesting thing I could find in his early years was that he could polish off a Rubix cube in one minute twenty seconds. I’ll skip over the university years out of kindness. No girlfriends, little alcohol, head in books, but used to agonise over which chocolate bars to buy.
Apart from academia the only real job he ever did was to be a researcher on Andrew Rawnsley and Vincent Hanna’s flagship television show A Week in Politics where he was rather impressive. In fact, he constructed the interview that turned Harriet Harman ‘into a gibbering wreck’. He later became her researcher and was eventually poached by Brown’s mob.
And what a mob they were. Ed Balls, a brooding, arrogant, bullying piece of political excretia, and Damien McBride, a poisonous little toad. Ed must have seemed the most normal person there. The Blairites used to sigh with relief when it was Ed who came to brief them on the latest Brown howlings at the moon: ‘Ed was known as the emissary from Planet Fuck as he was the only Brownite who didn’t tell supporters of the Prime Minister to fuck off’.
However, he did have a bit of an explosion. It was over a Blair strategy to promise Brown he would pack his bags then change his mind. This came to a head in 2004, when Brown stormed into Number 10 shouting, ‘When are you going to fuck off and give me a date? I want the job now’. Later, Ed stormed into the Number 10 gatekeeper Sally Morgan shouting, ‘Why haven’t you packed up yet to go? There’s a deal and he’s got to go’.
Where this book really comes alive is during the leadership election. I thought the serious bitterness between Ed and David was a bit of press hype. Sadly not – and it has dismayed and aged their mother, Marion. John Cruddas just couldn’t understand why Ed could possibly stand against his brother: ‘You don’t just fuck over your elder brother’.
Although the book is a fascinating insight into Ed’s psyche, it also digs deep into the total arrogance of David. One thing is clear: because of his constant rudeness and offhand insolence to backbenchers, David deserved to lose. He was the establishment candidate and assumed he would win. And, by God, his people threatened and cajoled.
And so did the establishment. I found it rather scary that at the moment Ed won, party officials, rather than guide him through the media interviews which was their job, went sobbing to the bar. Ed was on his own. ‘The party officials had just pissed off’. What a disgrace.
And if you want to know the real reason he has scrapped the shadow cabinet election, just remember that the overwhelming majority elected by it didn’t vote for him.
This really is a fascinating book. It makes the Borgias look like members of the Frinton Rotary Club. It examines two men who could provide the Drs Freud and Jung with enough material to last them a lifetime.
It is worth a read.
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Comments
July 17th, 2011 10:26am
Tankus
The feature almost makes him interesting , in the way that a turd is to a sewage worker.
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July 17th, 2011 11:02am
Nicholas
He's not tragic he's dangerous. Unless you really think mediocrity is a barrier to power.
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July 17th, 2011 11:20am
gramsci's eyes
Is this what passes now as political comment.
Dear oh dear.
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July 17th, 2011 11:26am
Matthew Blott
Well now, this is a hatchet job if ever there was one. I've been a critic of Miliminor myself and the fact that people thought he was geeky, was only interested in politics, stayed away from alcohol and hasn't had much of a career could equally be said the recent former Conservative leader Speccies seem to like ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Hague
And as for the references to Miliminor's sex life or lack of ... well Mr Hayes, a phrase with glass houses springs to mind.
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July 17th, 2011 11:36am
Dennis Churchill
A great Conservative asset. Cameron must go down on his knees each day to give thanks.
David would have been only slightly better for Labour. The fact that the party thought that either of them would appeal to the majority of the electorate shows just how out of touch the Labour party is.
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July 17th, 2011 11:40am
Andrew Zalotocky
I suspect that Miliband has the Kinnock problem. He might sometimes do well in opinion polls, but when people actually go to vote they will ask themselves whether they can really imagine this guy as a credible Prime Minister and many will decide that they can't.
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July 17th, 2011 12:01pm
James Strong
Ed Miliband did nothing wrong in standing against his brother just as Cameron did nothing wrong standing against David Davis.
David Miliband had no more right to be leader than any of the other candidates.
Both Ed and David wanted the job and Ed won within the rules.
You might just as well complain that David Miliband shouldn't have tried to get in the way of his brother,the young turk. That would be just as true and just as laughable.
And who the Labour Party chooses for its leader is no business of the vast majority of visitors here anyway.
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July 17th, 2011 12:36pm
toni
Sorry - Is this supposed to be some sort of distraction exercise? If so consider it a huge fail, and unlikely to make a headline anywhere else but here.
Surprising you don’t concentrate your alleged wit and judgment on the mediocre PM who is up to his neck in sewage, along with the political/journalistic excreta he associates with.
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July 17th, 2011 12:36pm
Liz Brown
i'll give it a miss thanks all the same.........
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July 17th, 2011 12:46pm
canonalberic
The most frightening aspect of modern british politics is not the over-weaning power of the unelected unaccountable bbc, or the weakness of the coalition hobbled conservative led administration or even the economy hanging by a thread but the risk that this unprincipled nasty creep might end up prime minister.
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July 17th, 2011 1:32pm
ollie
Miliband is Gordon Brown with a lisp, nothing else.
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July 17th, 2011 1:32pm
Woody
No other interests bar politics - just like Brown. What sad, sad, people.
He should reflect on Brown's unstatesmanlike performance in the HoCs's last week and reflect at the sheer bile and tribal hatred that runs through Brown and think that could be me in 10 years time.
It sort of proves he only married for convenience. What have we done to deserve these people?
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July 17th, 2011 1:42pm
Paddy
I think Miliband may have "peaked" too soon!
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July 17th, 2011 2:39pm
Jerry Hayes
Just a gentle and polite reminder for those who have not quite grasped it that this is a review of the book and am quoting its contents! This is not meant to be a personal hatchet job of Miliband. If it was I would do a better job
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July 17th, 2011 2:48pm
Baron
canonalberic @ 12.46:
a little bit over the top, essentially true though, impossible to argue against.
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July 17th, 2011 3:12pm
Henry Curteis
He might be all of these things, but he's drawn blood over the News International issue, and rammed Cameron onto the back foot. His brother would be 'browning' it for Murdoch. Ed goes for the jugular and kills.
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July 17th, 2011 3:44pm
Fred
Very very poor article, even by Coffee House standards. So completely lacking in objectivity thus has no credibility whatsoever.
The country will remember it was Milliband that led the long overdue rebellion against Murdoch and his tabloid scum whilst Cameron did his best to wish it away.
Pointless articles like this will not change the facts.
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July 17th, 2011 7:17pm
GDT
Lefties, so tribal they don't even realise this is a book review not an article.
All that is being said is contained in a book, written by someone else.
Jees, some people are retarded.
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July 17th, 2011 8:33pm
david
Are you this Jerry Hayes?
Hayes was frequently described as a "political buffoon", because of his willingness to subject himself to ridicule on various television and radio appearances. This included being fastened in the stocks and pelted with custard pies, and to be whipped while dressed in fetish clothing.
Sad or Tragic? its you who'll decide, could be a gameshow.
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July 18th, 2011 8:28am
Robin Sen
"The trouble is that Ed Miliband has not done anything particularly interesting except to be Gordon Brown’s bitch and trample all over his older brother to become leader of the Labour Party." A weak and disingenuous defence to make a statement like this then claim the article is merely a 'book review', rather than an attempt (a poor one as it turns out) to trash Miliband.
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July 18th, 2011 10:03am
Simon Templar
Well how tragic is David Cameron then?
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July 18th, 2011 11:52am
FF
So we have a politician who manages to be a bit weird, but uninteresting at the same time.
How does Ed Milliband differ from all the other high rising politicians? Does the book explain?
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July 22nd, 2011 3:39pm
Kevin Dunn
Has Britain ever had such a uniformly DREADFUL choice of political leaders? Ever? The alternative to this creature is Clegg and his sock-puppet.
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