Miliband finds his niche

DavidDP

"the coalition ‘used to blame the last Labour government"

Yes, every one knows the economic was in in robust health prior to Mr Brown vacating No.10. The sudden collapse and recession nthat occured over the weekend afterwards as a result of the Coalition was shocking and we are all paying for it now.

Jeremy

James Forsyth:

"One set of three questions were: why don’t we close the borders, bring back national service and do more to clamp down on benefit cheats..."

But nothing that you subsequently wrote suggested that Miliband answered any of these questions.

Dennis Churchill

So what did he say about:” close the borders, bring back national service and do more to clamp down on benefit cheats.”?

Tarka the Rotter

Miliband finds his niche - well, I spotted an avilable one on the Kremlin Wall last year when visiting Moscow - appropriate in so many ways, I think.

John Stepson

One thing I have always wondered about cranes is: Do you need a crane to put up a crane? And who puts up that crane?

Jeremy

James Forsyth:

"I spent this morning with Ed Miliband on a trip to a factory in Sunderland."

James, it's vulgar to boast.

Cynic

Ah, it was Liebherr - I had no idea it was such a Teutonic name from the BBC's pronunciation of it. Perhaps they should bone up - after all, we're all speaking German now (Volker), aren't we?

Paul Danon

Sure but it's the same old claptrap. He needs a new script.

Cynic

"‘Labour bought into the myth for too long. For too long we accepted that manufacturing was in decline.’" Surely that wasn't a myth? Manufacturing did decline under Labour.

"Where Miliband was less comfortable was on discussing benefit fraud, something that clearly exercised an awful lot of the people in the room." It's an awful lot easier to insist that a shop floor (probably TU) delegate is included in remuneration committees (under pain of some EU penalty, probably) than to deal with remedying inefficiencies in a system created by his Party.

Andrew Shakespeare

"I spent this morning with Ed Miliband"

I'm sorry. I hope you feel better soon.

RKing

Did he have Grommet with him?

Andrew Tennant

And answers came there none.

If Ed wants to try and garner votes by simply telling us Labour are rubbish I'll agree, but there's zero chance I'll vote for him.

Hexhamgeezer

That will be the niche he shares with with dave n'nick and their odious sidekicks and brothers in arms Huhne and Cable.
Those cranes might come in useful seeing as the Alcan smelter and power station up the coast at Lynemouth is being closed down.
And why is it closing? 'Emerging legislation'. In other words the EU’s emissions Trading Scheme and Large Combustion Plants Directives which make it far harder to operate here than out East.

600 plus jobs in an area not exactly thriving is a massive blow but as dave sez -lets not bang on about Europe eh?

Winkers all.

Russell

Miliband and Balls are beyond loathing. How the hypocrites dare appear on tv and/or in front of workers is disgraceful.

Conscription would remove all the labour 'educated' 16 to 24 year olds, but I bet he didn't agree with that, or admit it was/is labour policy to let millions of illegal immigrants and phoney asylum seekers into this country.

I bet he also didn't admit to the endless list of benefits/allowances etc. available to the workshy and in particular single mothers with large families from numerous absent fathers.

david

I love to know when the media will start asking red ed and balls "how many of our youth were unemployed at the last election"

850,000 in autumn 2010.[1]The number of young Britons who have been without employment for more than a year was over 200,000 in autumn 2010. While this declined slightly mid-way through 2010, it had been rising each quarter before that for a number of years.

anyfool

Mr Forsyth are you vying for a job at the BBC, This type of softsoaping must have earned you a lot of brownie points with that bunch of *+"^s. top hat on and under the snakes belly you can go.

Abigail

No, no, I cannot believe this article, what does he mean the myth that Industry was dying, he and the rest, headed by Brown killed it dead. You insult my intelligence with this article, seriously, you people are not for real, he has no niche, unbloodybelievable. I give up, you Sir are not on this Island never mind on this Planet!

Andrew Fletcher

Labour elected the wrong brother

The Unions got Ed in - the rest of his party didn't ant him as leader

He will never be PM

At the next election Labour will win more seats but nowhere near enough to win an outright majority

Ed will be ditched and replaced by his brother

Labour will look back on 5 wasted years

The Tories and Lib Dems will both have fewer MP's but the Coalition will limp on for another parliament - any attempt at reform will be forgotten about

Cameron may resign after 2-3 years as he becomes more and more unpopular

A new Tory leader will then take on David M at a GE in 2019/20

Everything else on policy and issues is merely "noise"

WIlliam Blakes Ghost

So a political serf wholly owned by the TUC makes a half decent factory shop steward in a union shop. Go figure.........

tom jones

Milliband finds his niche? What's that then - preaching to traditional Labour voters? Big wow. That must've been tricky. I know they say you should never underestimate your enemy, but when it comes to Milliband I can't help but find him an idiot who should be doing comedy instead of politics.

Heartless P.

I politely suggest the word "crevice" in place of "niche". Other words may upset gentle folk.

Cogito Ergosum

@John Stepson 1743/16/11/11

Yes, you need a crane to put up a crane. I have watched a mobile, powered crane used to put up a tower crane on a building site.

Sir Everard Digby

Ed proves he knows bugger all about business. Most of us do not have a remuneration committee in our companies.Some of us took a business idea and borrowed money to try and realise it. Having done so,we create jobs for others. Why should we,having gambled in the first place,not take a greater share of any rewards? -after all we are taking 100% of any losses.

If his idea is to reduce the reward for risk ratio, why bother?

A clueless policy wonk,currently more wonk than policy.

oldtimer

Well the Climate Change Act, of which he was the enthusiastic sponsor, will certainly do the job of finishing off UK industry. Just ask those 600 unfortunates who will soon lose their jobs at the Alcan plant because of prohibitive energy prices.

PayDirt

What odds the next Govt to be Labour even led by the minischool ‘Ed Miliband?
The Tory Party supporters self-destruct, in the full knowledge of the numbers of UK voters ranged against them more and more historically minded to vote left of Centre...
In the menacingly meaningful words of that Maestro of the Music Hall: “I give you the militantly misplaced Miliband, magnificently miscast, most mirthful mumbler, some Mothers do ‘av M ‘Ed, movingly metropolitan, mixed-up melange of mishmash, mockingly made mincemeat, more misunderstood than Mephistopheles, matchbox mind miserably mismanaged, made in the minute member of Her Majesty’s HP, metamorphosed miscreant, without a modicum of memorable mission, mediocre meritless mistake, a manifestly misplaced metier, mingling monkeys with madmen, a mouse among men, my most monstrous monomaniac, I give you the much maligned ‘Ed Miliband, the next Primmmmmme Minister.

HJ

Is Ed Miliband unaware that manufacturing output was growing strongly when Labour came to power and that under Labour this rise in output was first halted and, after a period of stagnation, it declined?

Manufacturing output grew by about 20% under the previous Tory government, but declined by over 10% under Labour.

Surely Miliband cannot be ignorant of the fact that the decline happened when Labour was piling costs on the country's internationally exposed industries in order to pump money into the public sector (where productivity was falling)?

Bloody Bill Brock

What niche did he find ? Did he clean the shop floor lavatories while he was there?

MartSharm

"Why don’t we close the borders, bring back national service and do more to clamp down on benefit cheats?"

As a resident of the North-East I can assure you this little list sums up people's feelings here about the state of the country. Yet one could argue that these are matters that require a right-of-centre response to sort out properly - so why is it that everyone up here votes Labour? There is a serious problem with historical voting patterns - Labour know they'll win with no effort so they put no effort into the region. If people in the North-East want improvements, they're going to have to start voting for someone else other than Labour.

I bet they all despise Miliband on a personal level just as much as Cameron - both southern posh boys.