Miliband's poll nightmare returns

Mr L

Conservatives should hope the Labour Party funk it. They usually do.

Verityred

Fear not Ed, you always have your fellow geek and impersonator David Lindsay making matters worse for you on here and elsewhere with his devoted backing in the form of tedious chunks from his undead blog and disastrous off script dribble!

Cynic

What about a caption competition for that photograph? It's a peach! Where did you find it? I suggest: Heil! I can't see where I'm going.

Cynic

"Even when Labour have been winning by-elections (as they're expected to in Feltham and Heston tomorrow) ... " If they do, I shouldn't like to be in Boudicca's household tomorrow night! I wish the UKIP candidate all the best.

ex-Tory Voter

" ... they may just be a blip; they may, theoretically, have nothing to do with Cameron's break from Brussels ..." The moon may be made of green cheese. Come now, even I am impressed that Cameron showed a backbone for once and stood up for Britain and I've joined UKIP after despairing at the so-called Conservatives' pro-EU stance! Of course, Cameron will have to continue to show pro-UK tendencies. It will be interesting to see what his ratings would be if he backtracked. Hell hath no fury like an electorate scorned (yet again).

Dennis Churchill

Labour’s decision to elect Miliband ,and it would have occurred regardless of which brother was elected ,shows how the political class are now so detached from the majority culture that they simply can’t see how certain decision will affect the electorate.
How can I put this that won’t cause Guardian readers to have an attack of the vapours? He is too foreign. Further he looks and sounds like a Geek who has never had a real job .Yes I know that does not matter in the Staff rooms of our Comprehensives. I know it does not matter in the BBC,I know it does not matter much in London , but it does matter out there where the millions of voters live who will decide the next election.
The Conservatives need to take advantage of the Euro bounce and call a snap election. They will never get a better opportunity.
It should be easy enough to engineer a crisis in the coalition.

Trevor

Denis Churchill - the Conservatives *can't* call a snap election, as they are bound by fixed-term Parliaments, as of September this year, with the first election being in 2015 (they also don't have the 2/3rds majority required to countermand this)

Hexhamgeezer

Balls! We want Balls! The pencil sharpener for the architect of Labour's Economic Miracle. That nice Yvette Cooper can sit next to him and wipe the spittle from his chin. We are not getting enough talking Balls - or maybe the little dark haired one that looks a bit like a baby panda, got a scottish accent like those other ones. Ed can then get back to his original Muppets.

fergus pickering

No need to worry. Cameron will beat Miliband whenever the election is. He would also beat Balls - by a landslide - and the other Miliband, who is wet, wet, wet. You may not like Cameron, but unless you are Mexican Verity you have to admit he exudes confidence, it's an upper class Etonian thing, don't you know? I don't like it, myself, but it does make good Prime Ministers.

Woody

I've just heard the most outrageous spinning by the BBC for EdMiliband. They were completely following the Labour line "David Cameron might have had the better jokes but..."

There have been many theories why the Tories didn't get a majority but you only have to look at the last two weeks of the BBC's coverage of the election campaign and the constant repeating of Labour's scaremongering.

The Tories really need to do something about the BBC before the election.

Robert Christopher

If the Tories do nothing about the BBC before the next election, what will be the point of them being government?

escapedRoger

Mr. Ed , Michael Foot redux.

CuttingEdge

Hopefully enough Tory MPs read the CoffeeeHouse and can get DC in a corner.

BBC coverage is sickening. Havent watched it since the election, and a shame but I don't listen to 5Live anymore since its swung way to the Left.

If you're following the -crisis, CNBC for two hours in the morning is a good crack with Steve Sedgewick and Geoff Cutmore, . Unlike with the BBC left-wing clones, they say what they think (especially Steve), and the European presenters scale from very attractive and intelligent to in Silvia's case fiendishly critical of the Brussels/German angle. With a comic genius Blackadder would be proud of her musings will brighten the start to your day.

Pettros

Who is more deluded:
a) looney lefty
b) tory anti-euro grump
c) BBC are communist-NWO conspiracy theorist

nonny mouse

It is not Ed who is unelectable, but his whole wing of the party. He is Gordon Brown Mk 2. Labour need Tony Blair Mk 2.

Ed wiped New Labour out of history and out of the Shadow Cabinet. He replaced it with a neo-Brown Shadow Cabinet.

I don't think even Eds brother can save them - he was just as weak over Europe.

Where is the benched New Labour face to lead a Shadow Cabinet of New Labour faces?

I don't think they have one and I don't think they want one or realise that they need one.

Ed is safe until his 2015 defeat.

Dennis Churchill

Trevor
December 14th, 2011 5:55pm
The term “call” needs to be interpreted as “reluctantly agree” after they suffer a series of defeats because the LibDems don’t support them.
The LibDems’ strings can be pulled using the EU and the dreaded Referendum word. Or even some of the Green issues that cost us so much. They were only needed to keep the BBC-Guardian from adding toxin to the Toxic Brand.
It really does not matter if fixed terms are agreed if the government losses a confidence vote or is defeated on a number of issues.
Parliament can’t bind itself; it can just repeal any Act they previously passed. Do you think it would just limp on if the LibDems walked out?

Occasional Ostrich

David Cameron really does not need to be encouraging Labour to replace Miliband. That's one thing that IS going fine right now.

Dennis Churchill

fergus pickering
December 14th, 2011 5:59pm
No arrogance is not restricted to old Etonians; take Ken Clarke for instance or Dennis Mac Shane.
Macmillan famously had problems with his Old Estonians.

Verity

Actually, Fergus Pickering, I don't think The Rt Hon David Blancmange of Hen's Arse Hall does exude confidence. He looks tight and nervous to me. Most OEs (not that I've met all of them) do exude confidence, but in a nice way. I've never met one who patronises, but I am willing to bet that David Blancmange patronises. For example, he thought "the little people" might be over-awed by the sight of him in tails at the royal wedding and, so as not to alarm them with his grandness, wore a lounge suit. David Beckham, meanwhile, wore a morning suit, as all English men do at weddings.

And Samantha thought she might overwhelm "the little people" with a sense of inferiority if she wore a hat. Whereas the first thought of a woman, on any social level, who gets invited to a wedding is, "I must shop for a hat!"

Two nasty, patronising, out-of-touch people, and I have a feeling that Dave has a temper that he keeps under lock and key.

Mrs W

DC did wear a morning suit at the royal wedding, Verity.

Axstane

Verity

Something new please - this is old hat that you have been venting from Mexico for months. Don't you get any fresh news there? Is Pancho Villa still alive?

Even Vulture manages some new insults from time to time as UKIP laboriously devises them.

Heartless P

Clearly, the guy in the piccy is fumbling for something, - disorientated in time, space, and place.

Who is he? ... anyone know?

David Lindsay

If Labour wins the Feltham and Heston by-election tomorrow, then it will be the fifth such victory in succession since Ed Miliband became Leader.

The EU referendum, motion was the wrong motion. But it was the motion that there was, and the following Labour MPs voted for it: Ronnie Campbell, Rosie Cooper, Jeremy Corbyn, Jon Cruddas, John Cryer, Ian Davidson, Natascha Engel, Frank Field, Roger Godsiff, Kate Hoey, Kelvin Hopkins, Steve McCabe, John McDonnell, Austin Mitchell, Dennis Skinner, Andrew Smith, Graham Stringer, Gisela Stuart, Mike Wood.

Frank Field had previously nominated John McDonnell for Leader. As had the Countryside Alliance’s Kate Hoey. As had Ronnie Campbell, together with his constituency neighbour Ian Lavery, the two Labour MPs, being half of all the MPs, from the second most rural county in England; Campbell is a pro-life Catholic. And as had Ian Davidson, a Co-operative stalwart who on the floor of the House has correctly identified New Labourites as “Maoists and Trotskyists”, and who is a hammer both of Scottish separatism and of European federalism.

From all sections of Labour apart from the Blairite aliens, those on either or both of those lists, together with as many other Labour MPs as possible, should immediately make it clear, without the slightest room for doubt, that they would resign the Whip if the present media attempt to stage a Blairite coup against Ed Miliband were to be successful.

francbanc

I think if David and Samantha Cameron do use the term, "little people", it's in reference to people with very small minds, with very big chips on their shoulders.

Maria

Well
Dave could always hope that Labour replace Ed with Balls.
What a pleasure it is to read Verity's reprise of her opinion of Dave and Sam's outfit for "the wedding".

Walter Ellis

There are tough times coming. Tough for Britain, tough for Europe, tough for everybody. In our little neck of the woods, it would help if the Coffee House community showed its best side, not its worst, in the days ahead. Is that too much to ask?

Sir Everard Digby

David Lindsay,

Were any of the by-elelction wins gains from the Tories? Were not two of those by-elections called under unusual circumstances. Remind us why there were by-elelctions in Barnsley Central and Oldham and Saddleworth?

I suggest someone needs to stage a coup against Milliwit -he is dire. On the positive side he does stand up well against Michael Foot

Boudicca

Cynic
December 14th, 2011 5:29pm

It's a Labour stronghold and I'm a realist. We've put in a good campaign and I hope we increase our vote substantially from the GE and come third - beating the LibDems.

Meanwhile, the current leader of LibLabCON is trouncing the also-ran. It matters little because whichever branch of the party 'wins' the next election, we will still be ruled by the EU and people who make it absolutely plain that they hate us.

Nicholas

@Walter Ellis - who made you the Coffee House moderator cum chaplain?

And "best side"? What? How? Your subjective view of what constitutes "best side" might not be others. Some people, e.g. the BBC, think "best side" is conforming to a socialist view of the world and constantly attacking the Tories.

Conformity, especially when espoused by one person on a forum, always makes me suspicious.

Dennis Churchill

Maria
December 14th, 2011 10:35pm
No Balls would be more of a threat than Miliband.
There is not enough difference between the main stream parties’ economic policies to do him damage. It is mostly spin, which suits both to present as massive differences.
We have a political class that has reduced politics to marketing so the next thing they need to admit is the party leaders are Products to be marketed.
Presentational skills and the appearance of being a leader are needed. Blair was successful because he brought his barristers’ skills ,of presenting a case regardless of whether you believed in it, to media age politics. He also concentrated on being an “ordinary bloke”.
What society would find Miliband an ordinary bloke in appearance, background or personality? Not the UK I suggest.
Sarkozy, for instance, would never be elected in the UK.Nor a number of other Continental European leaders. We are much more like the USA in that respect, no doubt because of the cross fertilization that results from our political class looking to the USA for trends and advice.

Skibbereen Eagle

Verity -

"Most OEs (not that I've met all of them)....".

Says it all.

PayDirt

Walter E: some hopes. Engaging in Coffee House is a bit like going to rough house school where the game is a lot about intimidation, belittling others contributions - probably very satisfying in a sadistic sort of way, blog-rage at its intellectual peak, that is coffeehouse; but not all the time, it’s also comical really, Nicolas makes the point.

Cynic

"Macmillan famously had problems with his Old Estonians." I didn't know there were people from Estonia in his party, Dennis. We weren't even in the EEC then.