David Miliband has the best of it as the Labour leadership candidates debate

Alexander

I agree Ed Balls comes across as the most energetic. With regard to Andy Burnham, well I cannot wait until he starts shaving and gets into long trousers.

It is a shame that none of them have ever been employers - wrote cheques to HMRC and tried to win business for their firms. If they had, they may think differently.

nick

Still, all about spending, and nothing about how to pay off the 5,000 billion (and rising) of debts.

Until labour gets it's head round that someone has to pay the price its an irrelevance.

The coalition should introduce a labour tax to appear on payslips that is hypothecated to paying of debt.

Then people will realise the consequences of a fiscally incontenent party like Labour (capital L)

Frank P

Return of the zombies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Night_of_the_Living_Dead.jpg

Verityred

Balls is making an unpleasant prat of himself to anyone with half a brain. All this repetative use in the Speccie of words like 'pugnacious' and 'feisty', why not try 'bully' and 'totem of Labour's failure under Brown'.

See, not difficult, is it. Or do you have reasons for bigging this poison toad up?

charles hercock

Three cheers for the saying

Nick is leading them off a cliff

He is but then so would Ed

Thank God this election does not matter

Dig for Victory

Loved Ed Balls quoting Saddam Hussein

‘We’ve got to fight the Mother of all Battles’

Andrea Gill

As a Lib Dem I'd much rather follow Nick Clegg off a cliff than touch Ed Miliband with a barge pole.

sinosimon

surely the most revealing moment of all(past all the new/old labour verbiage and posturing) was that THREE out of the FIVE of these Oxbridge educated would be leaders could not place St George's Day.

i'll type that again for those people who may think they misread first time round. 60% of our elite university output wishing to lead this country of ours did not know the date of its patron saint's day.....these people who are only answering the call to office because of how much they love this country, wish to serve the people of this great nation blah blah
can't name the national day of the 90% majority population of the union.

it's also shakespeare's birthday, although given the liberal left's hatred of dead white males in our history perhaps their collective ignorance on that is understandable.

absolutely shameful.....and you at the spectator should run with this for all it is worth...as it shows the contempt for anything english at the heart of the labour cesspit.

Holly ......

What will these four do if Diane wins?
Out of all of them,she is the only one who has not changed her story to suit.
If you do not like her,you know the reasons,
likewise if you do like her you also know your reasons.

davidk

As good a performer as Cameron undoubtedly is, David Miliband will be a formidable opposition leader capable of besting him; Ed Balls is head and shoulders above the unctious Osborne and will grind him to dust as shadoow chacellor.

Not much for the Coalition to worry about then....

ollie

Where has this sudden admiration for miliband snr come from? I've been scratching my head, wondering why. He's only been presented with two challenges - ie the Labour leadership - and he ran away both times.

Who can remember a single outstanding speech he has ever given? I saw him on the Sky News debate, and I was struck by not only his fence sitting, but his arrogance.

The man is a weasel in a suit, and Cameron is ten times the leader he will ever be.

Verityred

davidk - you are a Labour lickspittle of the low level of Dick Dork himself.

Praising a tribal bottomfeeder like the mendacious fantacist Balls is about as sad is it gets.

Alan P

Agree with DavidK, but Charles Hercock is wrong to think this election doesn't matter, as many on here appear to think too. Labour may lack the killer candidate, but think about it like this. Geoff Boycott is fond of pointing out how quickly 197-3 can become 197-5 (and into the tail) with the fall of two quick wickets. Imagine if anything - God forbid - were to happen to Cameron and Osborne. Who on earth replaces them? The Tories have an exceptionally long tail and some would argue it begins right after Dave himself.

Holly ......

Balls head & shoulders above Osborne?
That is probably why Balls is going nowhere in the leadership contest and Osborne is now chancellor.
Head & shoulders eh????

Tim W

I enjoyed the debate. It was an excellent, varied format, well moderated, and all the candidates appeared much more human (horrible phrase) and friendly than they have been in the past. The questions into the breaks showed how out of touch some people can be though (The face that Ed Balls thinks GMTV is a drama says it all!).

David Miliband is clearly the best. Sadly for a Conservative, Labour will actually vote for him.

I must take issue with what they all agreed on - a Graduate Tax. They justified removing tuition fees by arguing that they put people off applying for university. When people are being turned away because universities are full, how can this reason be acceptable when it is clearly wrong? Andy Burnham's comment about wanting to debate about 'the 50percent who don't go to university', was one of the best comments.

TrevorsDen

davidk - where are the Sunday newspaper headlines you were talking about.

But otherwise your prophesies of today are equally bunkum. For one, Balls will not be shadow chancellor. I hope he is - it will be terminal for Labour.

TrevorsDen

Sorry for the PS.

i thought labour would be mad not to choose Ed Miliband, but actually watching a bit of them on the stump I have changed my mind. Certainly if the elect in Ed a now self confessed 'preferee' of Brown then Labour are wide open to Brown casting a long pall over their party. Pretty disastrous.

Hysteria

what Nick said.....one of the simplest ways to change the mind-set of the tax payers would be to add a specific line item on the tax code that shows how much of the code is purely to pay off national debt....

Victor Southern

Did I actually hear MilibandE say that we would be able to "repay the deficit"?

Aubrey Herbert

At the risk of repetition of an earlier comment, the choice between the two Milibores is as inspiring as deciding which of Violet Trefusis or Vita Sackville West was the more irritating minor aesthete in the Bloomsbury set.

It would be an amusing distraction from the awfulness of the debt they bequeathed to us were it not for the near inevitability that one of these plodding mediocrities will be the next PM. It is almost worth joining the Labour Party just to vote for whichever is the least electable.

Clear Memories

A lot of effort to spend the rest of your life whinging from the political sidelines whilst trying to 'lead' a bunch of malevolent has-beens.

Labour and Socialism are finished. By the time the Coalition have sorted out the mess Bliar and Bruin left, and helped by the blind, vicious, selfish greed now being exposed by the actions of the Unions who fund Labour, nobody will ever vote Labour again.

In solving the problems, it is crucial the Coalition ensure the message is clear - you are suffering because you voted Labour. Don't let Socialism ever gain a foothold again.

Paddy

Clear Memories: Agree entirely.

A bunch of 'losers'.

The fun will begin when the 'brothers' have elected a leader.