Would David Miliband make a good leader?

Vulture

You insider chaps are always banging on about how wonderful Bruin, Miliband, Mandelslime etc are in private ( I remember Gill Hornby, aka Mrs Robert Harris, telling me, in effect, when I asked her why she let that slimeball Mandy across her doorstep that he was very good at washing the dishes). But surely it is one of the essential tasks of a politician to appear nice, competent, intelligent etc where it counts - ie. in public.

Not the least of the reasons for Bruin's unpopularity - as revealed, for example in the letter affair - is that people now see that as a walking, talking, empathising, fully functioning human being he is, ahem, bust. He just can't do it. Same applied to Grocer Heath.

For all Millipede's rumoured 'fierce intelligence' he cannot connect with us.
You are right : an unelected post as one of the EU's bureaucrats in chief would have suited Mr Geekie down to the ground.

peter

I read this and then re-read it and realised that I no longer care. I am so frustrated and disillusioned by the Lisbon fiasco because there is now nothing we can do about it, and the sooner Cameron is upfront and honest about it, the better.

I think we should have a referndum on "in or out" and I think that the prospect of one the EU's members leaving would have an interesting effect on the other members. An enlarged group based on the old EFTA is not an impossibility.

I do not want to see any UK citizen waltzing around the world negotiating on behalf of my country and least of all a member of the current discredited government.

If Milliband sees his future as Leader of the Opposition I could not care less.

ed hall

One difference is that Hague seems genuinely intelligent. Milliband may be able to spew out undergraduate political doctrine and reel off meaningless statistics but that just makes him a bore, not a heavyweight.

Chris lancashire

You look at the succession in the Labour party and you despair. Harman?, the Millibands Major and Minor?, Balls/Cooper??, Straw (ha,ha)?, Postie Johnson?
There will have to be a leader post-Brown but they will have to skip this talentless generation before they get a potential PM.

emil

Labour need to win something, and he would be a shoe in for any party leader's gurning competition. Still in this era of Jedwards promoting this chump to party leader seems just about spot on.

Billy Blofeld

Miliband is a banana wielding traitor.

He has been instrumental in selling this country to Europe - and he didn't even get 3 magic beans in return.

Fierce intelligence or self serving weasel?

Michael Booth

of a group of Young Pioneers, certainly.

Nicholas

"Would David Miliband make a good leader?"

No.

The Puppet Master

What is the evidence of Millibands intelligence? Whenever I read any comments about his diplomatic trips it always seems to end up with him upsetting his hosts.
If he is responsible for the part of the Lisbon Treaty, then he is an idiot, reducing democratic accountability always ends in failure, as power is always abused.

Andy Leeds

NO. He's an idiot (with or without his banana) like the rest of this lot.

Chuck Unsworth

Depends what he's leading. If it's the Gadarene Swine, he'll probably do OK.

But he's displayed no real Leadership qualities, ever.

Amadeus Plonquer

To be honest with you I think I'd rather keep Gordon Brown. Says it all really.

Colin

Chris lancashire @9:29am

"You look at the succession in the Labour party and you despair."

No we don't, we're rejoicing.

Everything possible should be done to bring this vile regime down and to make sure it stays down.

As for David Miniblair, the banana man? Who cares? He's a bumbling, incompetent irrelevance.

Dennis Churchill

The best leader of the Labour Party that the Conservatives could hope for.
He has virtually no understanding of the British people or any affection for them or their history.

Gary Williams

D. Blackburn,

You won't find me defending D. Miliband generally, but can you do no better than to coarsen British political commentary even further by mocking the man because he happened to be photographed holding a banana?
Please concentrate on matters of substance, and spare us the puerile irrelevancies.

john miller

Aaaggh! Not another one! It's almost Catholic the way these people bless each other.

"Oh, , he's SO intelligent, got a brain the size of a planet."

Usually it turns out their brain may well be the size of Jupiter, but it has the content of a small mollusc's.

This person has been brought up amongst generations of political activists. He may well have a subtle grasp of the differences between Marxism and Leninism, but you can guarantee his shoe size comfortable exceeds his IQ. And you can bet it runs in the family.

Dear old Ed, having banged on about investing 50% of GDP in windmills and solar panels has suddenly realised that there is something called nuclear power. Whoop de doo, mate, swift aren't you?

I'd rather have my wife's Jack Russell run the country than either of this pair. And the poor old thing has been dead for six years.

London Calling

We could trade David Miliband for a referendum
I doubt he'll be missed...but our sovereignty will.

Senor Frizby

People don't like him because he is an intellectual who has never put himself out to stud in the real world. Therefor his intellect is seen as flawed as he doesn't "get" real life. If he doesn't get that then why would we vote for him? He knows that so he back the undemocratic EU. It just seems that vanity and bad advice has kept him back in Britain to take the helm of the Titanic Party.

What a dipstick!

Maggie

This week Miliband abused the trust placed in him by cancelling his appointments in the UK to travel on a taxpayer-funded jaunt to Berlin. Once there, he (and Mandelson) gatecrashed a gathering of European Heads of State in pursuit of the personal ambitions of Blair, Miliband and Mandelson. The sooner we see the back of this wicked triumvirate the better.
I trust in the Europeans to have more sense than to give any of them a job. Perhaps his future lies in a well paid sinecure with Rothschild's bank.

Summer

No. Next question.

ChrisP

I acutally think Milliband would make a better Prime Minister than leader of the opposition. From what I have heard he is a clever operator, intelligent and knows how to apply that to running government. He is head and shoulders above the likes of Balls.

However he will only get the chance in all likelihood be leader of the opposition, and that is a position from which you run only your own party. A bit too much like herding cats.

Danko

Dennis,

Surely the best leader of Labour we could ask for would be Harperson...?

Alan Douglas

Should we start referring to the Milibands as David and Edward, Deadward in short ? Or can we cheat a little and call them Deadwood ?

Alan Douglas

Ivan D

Remind me again, what exactly are Finkelstein's credentials for advising anyone? Has he ever successfully advised anyone? No? Well then maybe we can all appreciate why the Foreign Secretary probably isn't likely to be too bothered by tomorrow's wood stove kindling.

Andrew Richardson

I have noticed an interesting disconnect between the readers of the blog and the contributors. Although we are all by definition interested in politics and most are natural tories, the readers seem to have a different perspective - to be able to separate from the incestuous world of westminster.

So, I also have no idea what people mean when they say that Miliband is bright and talented. I have never heard or read anything remotely interesting or original of his.

And second we outside westminster never want to see a governemnt like this ever again. And if this means the permanent and complete demise of the labour party - well I for one could live with that.

I like the idea of Miliband as Labour leader as the man would be incapable of connecting with anyone. He is intelectual, european and a complete tosser - or that is how he would present.

Anne Wotana Kaye

Good leader for which communist organisation? I know his sire was a dedicated bolshie, what is known of this cur's dame?

Colin

Alan Douglas@

Love it! Best so far.

Frank P

Once again, despite your critique of this third-generation-mutation of Marxist spawn, you seem to be willing him to get his act together and achieve his malign ambitions; praising him by faint damnation. I'd like to think you are provoking further vitriolic scorn to be heaped on his head; but nah! your true colours are glowing through the wafer thin patina of camouflage again.
Obviously you can't help it, you've been through the Gramscian brainwasher and obviously irretrievably so. Seems to me Andrew Neil picked up a job-lot direct from Jeremy Lester's stud when he re-manned the Speccy. I'm beginning to think he may even have reckoned that Melanie has enough residual material in her soul, after her long distant youthful dalliance with the Guardianistas, to be reclaimed if surrounded but a new wave of youthful culture warriors. Well, if so, that backfired, didn't it? She must feel very alone on that patch at the moment, though. I see Massie has just put the boot into her ribs this morning; may I suggest that the 'Window Lickers Swat Team' (WLST) re-group and draw truncheons. Or shall we just let him stew in his own juice with his own sinistral supporters. After all he is still only a very narrow by-way of the Super-Highway of opinion? Whaddayathink?

Chuck Unsworth

@ Chris P

"He is head and shoulders above the likes of Balls". I think you'll find that is the usual physical configuration.

@ Andrew Richardson

Who is this 'we' you're talking about?

greenslime3

Here's something political:
Miliband is a slimey, smarmy, machiavellian, little (human) tailpipe. All of which means that he would fit in well as leader of the Labour Party.

Andy Carpark

What, AGAIN?

In the next thrilling instalment of Coffee House, James Forsyth posts a short film of his smalls going round in the washer and Fraser Nelson spray-paints himself blue and poses as a statue of Worzel Gummidge on the South Bank.

JC on a bike … whatever happened to this site?

2trueblue

Denis Churchil. You are quite correct that Milliband has no understanding .......
That unfortunately can be said of most of the current cabinet and a lot of the Labour party. They have spent their years destroying our culture and have no interest in what is best for Great Britain, and frankly the sooner we get rid of all of them the better.

Nicholas

Finkelstein is one of those infuriating "Tory" journalists who isn't. Lukewarm at best, very often his TV performances swing between positive damage to the Tories or being so agreeable to everyone, including the ruthless opposition (e.g. Maguire) that he is chocolate teapot material.

When it comes to "right wing" journalists we seem to be lumbered with wimps (Finkelstein, Letts), pompous irrelevancies (Hastings), foam-flecked nutters (Hitchens) or those grumpy ones (Melanie & Oborne) who hate Dave more than they hate New Labour - the journalistic equivalent of aiming your rifle at your own officer rather than the enemy.

Intelligent, incisive, surgical, devastating and above all engaging writing of the right which takes the Left and New Labour apart, which dissects them, which twists the knife once firmly thrust, which kicks the bastards when they are down? Certainly not here - or anywhere it seems. Even Standpoint, which I have a bit of time for, is far too polite and terrified of scaring the horses to take on the Left at their own game, let alone the devious and manipulative poltroons of New Labour. They know this of course, which is why the sudden rise of Mandelson from the coffin, a flick of his cape and a loud "Boo!" have them all scurrying for cover. Mandelson's accusations about the Sun and the BBC provide Dave and his journos with a wonderful opportunity to really put the boot in and stir up some shit, to scare out the dark heart of the oppositon and put the wind up the BBC big time. So what happens? Do they announce that they take Mandy's accusation of bias so seriously that if/when in power they will hold a completely independent review of everything the BBC get up to, root and branch, with a view to radical reform and suggest in the meantime the government ought to do the same if they are so concerned? Er, no. Instead, Theresa May or some other half-hearted wafflers are paraded about to utter a few forgettable platitudes with a look of blind panic on their faces. Lesson one Theresa - when Paxman is rude and intimidating be rude and intimidating back to him - imagine him sitting in his dirty underpants eating pot noodles - and tell Yvette to STFU and listen for a change. The people are ready to hear you tell it like it is.

If you're reading this Dave I am available to put some fire in the bellies of your team. God knows they need it. My series of motivational lectures "Get off your arses and fight you lazy f*****s" are very reasonably priced.

Anne Wotana Kaye

Andy Carpark:
Hi,
You ask what is happening on this site. Answer: We have all been driven bonkers by Millipedes (two), Balls, Straw Slime, Hormone Hardperson et al. Does that answer your question. pal?

Dennis Churchill

Danko
Even Hattie.
Miliband(s) would confine Labour to their new Heartlands in North London where Mandelson, Hodge, Clarke etc can talk about the “issues” that interest them such as the cost of Domestic help in London and the need for more Brazilian, Filipino visas to ease the shortage.
Miliband never had a chance of the EU job other than in the fevered imaginations of his supporters. He also does not have a chance of leading Labour. They may be detached from reality, at times, but not completely gaga.

JONNY

I really enjoyed Nicholas' bitey piece.
Too long the unsung hero of the espresso glutters. Like myself he's focussing on the only thing that matters right now.
Win that Bloody Election. Which they keep on telling us is by no means a done deal.
I say he's bang on in almost every respect. But I have a problem. His logic leads one ineluctably to Hannan.
Ah there's the rub.
Say what you like about Hannan, he doesn't warm the cockles of the heart.
A fatal deficiency methinks.

Snowman

Nicholas @ 12.53

Good stuff even though you may have overlooked Liddle & Moore, the two have a following, just look at the adoration shown by the Scots on Rod’s blog. Your bigger miss is this. What good would the dissecting bla bla do? The Tories, and their scribbling supporters lost it when they bought wholesale the deadly paraphernalia of the Left-leaning philosophy of moral equivalence, political correctness and the rest. How does the shout of Corporal Jones go?

And as for Miliband, I side with Michael Booth at 9.39, but only after exhausting checks of Milly’s suitability to be allowed anywhere near the kids.

Maggie

And before you ask, Mandelson in any Euro post would be a fate worse than death.

Nicholas

Jonny - I thank you and re Hannan, agreed. There is no twinkle in the eye and the water is cold and uninviting.

Snowman- ah, yes. Messrs Liddle & Moore. Liddle the brazen loose cannon of jolly japes and provocation, the angry young man of the Speccie yacht's otherwise frightfully polite crew. Always a good read but too unpredictable. Never know which way he is going to suddenly lunge or rear up and whether the socialist baggage is going to lurch into view behind him. Moore. Hmm. Something of the 18th C patrician methinks. Writes (and talks) as though he is sitting several hands above on a big horse and looking down his nose at the hoi polloi. I've a bit of time for dashing horsewomen but in matters of prose I prefer the direct assault of the heavy cavalry to the perambulations and mournful horns of the hunt. So, sadly, both disqualified from being mighty Tory pens.

Agree with you about how much good it might do though. The sell out is almost complete and the old values have been thoroughly discredited and pushed to the fringe. Even so, never say die eh?

Michael Booth

David Miliband would make a good...

draft excluder
nodding car mascot
ear muff tester

and then I run out of career choices... anyone care to join in?

Andy Carpark

Michael Booth @ 4:15PM

From the PE archives, the best of the series '101 Uses for John Major'.

#56 (say): Manager of a Bottle Bank. Picture of JM sitting at a desk inside bottle bank, up to knees in the things, holding one up to his nose and going 'Hmmmm …'

Snowman

Nicholas @ 3.16

You should take over Brigth's blog. Suggest it to Nelson, tell him you've got backing - Johny and me for starters

EyeSee

Maybe Watford need a Play Leader.

Boudicca

Possibly .....Of a Star Trek convention, if he's a fan.

Labour Party Leader? Hahahahahahahha. He is so weird and geeky no-one but a tribal Labour supporter would vote for him. And before you suggest it, his brother's not much better.

daniel maris

No, thrice no.

I lost all respect for him with his outrageous attack on the Conservatives' European party links. This from a man whose "grandfather, Samuel, then Shimon, Miliband, a native of the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw, had fought under the command of Trotsky 'eliminating' white Russians opposed to Communism.

He later came to England with his son Ralph, who became a Marxist academic, and whose sons David and Ed now serve in the Cabinet." (According to Dave's Part).

Milliband has also spoken fondly of Stalinist Joe Slovo.

It's outrageous that he criticises the Tories for allying with parties that actually are not totalitarian while defending totalitarians and never once criticising his own family's links with totalitarianism.

Add to that his ability to sound fatuous on everything. The answer is an emphatic no.

Michael Booth

Came across this - there's going to be an EU summit to dish out the top jobs (no election mind, so don't get excited). Anyway, a senior EU diplomat is reported as saying...

"Van Rompuy and Miliband was the dream ticket, but Britain has not nominated Miliband. He has a young family and has one eye on the future Labour Party leadership."

To which all stout hearted yeomen would say "So does Gordon Brown mate, so does Gordon Brown".

Cheap shot but I like it!

Barbara

Well I think whatever he chooses to do, the nation won't be bothered either way, he may try and go for the leadership of the Labour Party, gutsy or what? For a party that's lost all crediblity here, its betrayed us, cheated us, and given the country away. Which if we want it back we will have to make a difficult decision who to vote for. Cameron has too let us down, and given us impossible options, No, we need a new start, new faces, new party and one who's committed to getting this country back in our hands, we have a fight but its one we can win if we make the right choice come voting day and do has we want and not be frightened off by insane comments, like a 'wasted vote' if you vote in the right place, we can all win. Has for Milaband he's on his own.

jojrazumies

He could lead the next Gilette advertising campaign. Or take over as Mr Bean.

Ken

Once and for all let us squash and splatter MiliBanana-the-putrid under foot, along with his overpromoted little brother -- wonderfully tagged by Alan Douglas above as "deadwood" -- and in the ideologically twisted phrase of the marxist ministerial tribe, "move on".

As an aside an incoming government really must make it a priority to smoke out and dispatch Marxist moles burrowed in the BBC, civil service, quangoes and education system if they ever want to change the direction of travel.

Frank Leader

I suppose if you want the grandson of a Marxist revolutionary. Mixed up with a Bolshevik group responsible for Assassinating The Tsar the answer is Yes.
His grandfather entered this country illegally and is buried in Highgate Cemetery near to Karl Marx.
His father was a Marxist lecturer. So with his Communist history and upbringing he might be alright for the Labour Party, but not for this Country.
Perhaps he could lead Labour into obscurity
for the next 250 years.

Anne Wotana Kaye

If a man of his age cannot grow a proper pair of whiskers above his top lip, then he's not all there!