Ed Miliband lives to flop another day
Lloyd Evans 3:37pm
Miliband survives! That news should steady Labour nerves. For today at least. Their
leader has the knack of turning near-certain defeat into absolutely-certain catastrophe, but he bumbled through PMQs this afternoon without suffering a serious setback.
He has so little ground from which to attack the government that he had to lead on a niche issue. Rail fares. He asked the prime minister why the operating companies have managed to hike prices by 11 per cent on the busiest routes.
Cameron: ‘Because of a power given to them by the last Labour government.’
With that lethally terse response the PM sat down. To his credit, Miliband wasn’t rattled. But the exchanges that followed were about as illuminating as blind-man’s-bluff played in a pot-hole. ‘The Prime Minister is wrong’, said Miliband. ‘No,’ Cameron replied, ‘the Opposition leader has got it wrong.’ ‘He’s wrong,’ countered Miliband. ‘Well, I know he’s had a difficult start to the year,’ said the PM, ‘but he’s getting it wrong.’ On it went.
Dusting off some abstruse detail, Cameron claimed that Labour, in office, had ‘introduced flexibility of 5 per cent above RPI’, but relaxed this limit in election year in order to sweep Gordon Brown back into Downing Street. ‘No,’ retorted Miliband, ‘the Prime Minister is wrong about the facts.’ Well, hey ho. Nothing like a tussle over percentage points to get the year off to a flyer!
Leading on transport was feeble and foolish from Miliband. Cameron was never going to be vulnerable on railways when he’s just sunk £32 billion into the Birmingham bullet-train. Miliband’s in a tangle here. Unless he forms an alliance with the Buckinghamshire hearties, and opposes the plan to invest three Olympic budgets helping Londoners spend 20 extra minutes in Birmingham, he’ll get zilch from transport between now and 2015. As Cameron showed today, the coalition has a ready answer to every question on railways. ‘Look at that,’ they’ll say, pointing to the mountainous HS2 package, ‘we’re spending oodles on our new train-set. Now ask something else.’
After his rail failure, Miliband turned to Scottish independence. And at this point, the punch-up turned into a therapy session. Both leaders were in total accord. It felt rehearsed. It was almost a musical. ‘Stronger together, weaker apart,’ they sang in cross-party harmony.
Cameron warned that the SNP were having so much fun with the process that they were in danger of losing the substance. ‘A referendum is fine’, he said, ‘but not a never-endum.’ No one knew what that meant but it sounded clever.
Angus Robertson took up the issue. He’s a large-ish fellow who acts as Alex Salmond’s vicar in Westminster, and he rashly decided to indulge in a spot of Sassenach-bashing. This united the House against him. As soon as he hoisted himself to his feet he was cordially jeered. He mocked the Tories for having ‘fewer Scottish MPs than there are giant pandas in Edinburgh Zoo’ and he accused Cameron of trying to do a Thatch and interfere in Scottish politics.
Not at all, said Cam, we’re trying to give Salmond’s referendum legal force. And he added a smart-alec debating point which he’s probably been polishing all Christmas: if the Nats want to secede from the Union now why are they delaying the poll for two years?
Cameron was as buoyant and sunny as he’s ever been in the House. And his anger-management problems seemed to have evaporated too. Mind you, Labour’s ageing goons played straight into his hands. Michael Meacher, like many an elderly leftie, seems obsessed by the Sunday Times Rich List. Meacher informed us how appalled he was that affluent people are good at making money. And he lamented that the UK’s thousand wealthiest citizens had added £136 billion to their coffers last year. His brilliant scheme is to tax all the swag and use the proceeds to create a million jobs. Surely, said Cameron, when Meacher refers to plutocrats he means ‘the prime minister he served under.’
One flicker of hubris marred Cameron’s performance. David Simpson (DUP Upper Bann) asked about Nick Clegg’s recent statement that the European treaty, rejected in December, would in some mysterious fashion become ‘folded into’ our existing EU obligations. In reply, Cameron seemed to dismiss his deputy outright. And with him the entire Lib Dem rump. ‘What Coalition partners put into their manifestos at the next election,’ said the prime minister airily, ‘is up to them.’
Previous
ddrm
January 11th, 2012 4:02pm Report this commentAs stated on the previous thread, Milipede was wrong. Go to Guido - he has a document proving conclusively that the change was for one year only. Typical Brownite attempt at electoral engineering - it was due to revert back after the election.
Russell
January 11th, 2012 4:06pm Report this commentMilibland has been proven to be wrong by a document released by the Department of Transport which states clearly that the reduced increases were only valid for a year from Jan 2010, after which they would return to the previous robbing arrangement which labour introduced.
The crooks in the labour party only reduced fare increases for a year to bribe the voter at the general election.
Another cock up from Miliband who should apologise for misleading the house (or lying).
David Lindsay
January 11th, 2012 4:12pm Report this commentHere we go again. He was ahead in the polls for over a year, and even after the blip caused by the euro non-veto he still won his fifth by-election in a row, with the usual comfortable swing from the Conservatives.
You do realise, don't you, that PMQs takes place at the very middle point of the working week, so that it is watched by almost no one in the wider electorate?
Most political journalists are glorified gossip columnists with absolutely no interest in real politics. You are going berserk at the prospect of a General Election that would be a proper contest both organisationally and ideologically, and which is easily on course to be won by a party outside the Blairite paradigm that passes for acceptable political debate so far as you people are concerned.
Jeremy
January 11th, 2012 4:22pm Report this commentLloyd Evans:
"...Nick Clegg’s recent statement that the European treaty, rejected in December, would in some mysterious fashion become ‘folded into’ our existing EU obligations."
I have long suspected that Nick Clegg's real job is not so much to lead the Liberal Democrats, as to represent the interests of Brussels in Britain.
No doubt his reward awaits him...
Ralph
January 11th, 2012 4:36pm Report this commentDavid,
Ahead in the polls, yes barely and only based on party support, and won by-elections held in mostly safe Labour seats. In both of these things people vote or say they'll vote Labour not for Ed. On the things that are required for being Leader of the Opposition, let alone PM, like PMQs he's out of his depth.
I don't want him to be another Blair but it would be good if he could reach the Kinnock level at least.
General Zod
January 11th, 2012 4:45pm Report this commentDL, you are trying too hard to convince yourself. A swing to Labour in a safe Labour seat is inevitable in an early by-election. It's extraordinary that any Tory voters in Feltham actually bothered to vote.
Torontory
January 11th, 2012 5:05pm Report this commentSurely the most significant comment by Cameron was his refusal to confirm that the 50% tax rate would remain for the lifetime of this Parliament leaving open the opporunity to reduce it if the review demonstrates it reduces rather than increases tax revenues. Has he seen an interim report?
steve
January 11th, 2012 5:27pm Report this comment"Leading on transport was feeble and foolish from Miliband. Cameron was never going to be vulnerable on railways when he’s just sunk £32 billion into the Birmingham bullet-train."
So leading on an 11% rise(not a small amount) on a hugely important issue is not good politics?? If you took the daily commute on an overcrowded route like so many of the ordinary proletariat you might see things differently! Also, you think shelling out 32 billion on a single train route when the rest of the network is getting more and more overcrowded and at a time when the world is heading for a depression is going to be a vote winner! It seems the journalists of this country are as out of touch as our politicians!!
David Lindsay
January 11th, 2012 5:54pm Report this commentGeneral Zod, it was not a safe Labour seat. It was exactly the sort of seat the failure to win which cost the Conservative Party an overall majority. 18 months later, hardly that "early", there was another 8.5 per cent swing from the Conservatives to Labour. But uniformly Blairite commentators prefer their own alternate reality, just as they used to ignore Conservative victories at local or European elections and run the "Tory meltdown" story as if everything had gone according to plan.
Five by-election victories in a row, swings easily big enough to deliver an overall majority, hundreds more councillors, hundreds more again expected this year. Those are real votes. As for the polls, which in Britain alone we pretend are neutral, neck and neck is not bad in the midst of a torrent of media abuse and outright lies (the reporting of Maurice Glasman's New Statesman article, for example). Why are these commentators still employed, if they have that little impact on public opinion?
However, if they succeed in staging the sort of Blairite coup that they did against Iain Duncan Smith, who also delivered poll leads and large municipal gains, then Labour MPs should do what Tory MPs should have done, and set up a new party, with lots of union money in their case. David Miliband and any rump around him could then clear off to the Coalition, where they belong.
Axstane
January 11th, 2012 5:55pm Report this commentMichael Meacher - wasn't he the Minister who spoke out against second homes and then had to admit to owning 7 or 8 properties? A true champion of the poor.
I thought that neverendum was rather clever. The point is that Salmond and the SNP are sustained purely by the lure of independence. Once that is obtained they will, like all "liberation" parties become redundant and the Scots will go back to voting on bread and butter issues. He also says that 2013 would be too early but 2014 would be just right. Explain.
El Sid
January 11th, 2012 6:12pm Report this commentYou are clueless sometimes Lloyd. Rail fares are classic "squeezed middle" / "alarm clock Britain" territory, even if it doesn't much affect the metropolitan literati.
Rail fares a "niche" issue? For you personally maybe, but don't let that distort the reality of the politics. Under the old boundaries, Labour need an extra 67 seats at the next election. Obviously the boundary changes will confuse things but just look at the seats they need to get to 67 - Croydon Central, Harrow East, Ealing Central, Stevenage are all in seats 47-59.
Go a bit beyond seat 67 and you'll find Harlow, Watford, Ilford North, Finchley, Crawley and Hornsey.
These are the kind of seats that put Miliband in Downing Street - and they are full of commuters at the lower end of the salary scale, whose season ticket is their second biggest expense. It is not a niche issue for them.
To get some kind of idea of the scale - according to Faisal Islam there are over 600 million tickets subject to regulated fares. Assume those all go to the same people making 240 journeys a year and that's 2.5 million voters. In fact rather more than that will be affected, but in any case - that is rather more than a niche issue.
You're also stupid if you think that money spent on HS2 is a ready answer to any question on railways. How does spending billions on HS2 help the poor sods who have to take SW Trains every day? Or the Northern Line? In fact that diversion of resources makes it less likely that other big transport projects will get funded. For instance I'm sure commuters in south London would much rather see Crossrail 2 extended beyond Wimbledon than money spent on HS2.
Sally Forth
January 11th, 2012 9:06pm Report this commentI think the original 'never-endum' joke came from the cause of independence for Quebec. As soon as they lost one referendum they'd start the argument for holding another one. Hence the feeling.
Cynic
January 11th, 2012 11:15pm Report this comment"Cameron was never going to be vulnerable on railways when he’s just sunk £32 billion into the Birmingham bullet-train." Hmm, he could be vulnerable on value for money if the Brummy white elephant vanity project goes ahead, delivers no gain and is vastly over budget.
Sir Everard Digby
January 12th, 2012 2:53pm Report this commentDavid Lindsay, perhaps a closer examination of the facts about the Feltham by-election would be in order?
1. The lowest recorded turnout since 2000. What choice would those missing voters have made?Impossible to guess,so I suggest any musings you may have about swing rates are on shaky ground. The comparison between 2010 and 2011 is far from like for like. Similar stories in many of Ed's other glorious by -election victories/fightbacks etc.
Given Brown's council election disaster in 2009,I would expect some correction to occur in numbers of Labour councillors. Hundreds sounds a lot but is not a major % of the overall total.
If labelling this Blairite helps you rationalise the situation,so be it. Like Ed, a reality check is required pretty soon to avoid future failure.
Back to top