More Mili-woe

Bob Dixon

This is not good news for the country. To keep the present government on their toes we need a strong opposition with policies relevent to our current sitution and the future.

Austin Barry

Ed’s handlers should encourage him to sing the following Mr. Fred Astaire song from Swing Time (1936) while in the shower or at stool:

“Will you remember the famous men,
Who had to fall to rise again?
So take a deep breath,
Pick yourself up,
Dust yourself off,
Start all over again.”

Unhappily, you just know that Ed is gormless enough to follow this advice and that, accompanied by an off-key wind section, a strange nasal rendition will be heard emanating from the Gents Cloakroom in the Palace of Westminster.

Dennis Churchill

Just another example of how out of touch with the majority of Britons our political class are.
The electorate will only vote for someone they believe shares their values. Labour’s Electoral College is, unfortunately for them, even more out of touch than the Conservatives or Miliband (either of them) would never have been serious candidates. They should have been filed with Dianne Abbot.
The figure to keep in mind is that Blair won with the support of under a quarter of the eligible electorate. Any party that could motivate the “none of the above” to vote could win. The problem is the media and political classes blend together and politics is marketed as brands with little real differences in policies between them.

Dan Grover

In some ways, though, are the Labour Supporter/Voter stats a slightly good thing, for Ed? I mean obviously having EVERYONE like you is best, but in the circumstances, isn't it best for as much of that 83% who don't think he'd make the best PM come from Labour supporters? Afterall, they're going to vote for him anyway. It's the ones who AREN'T traditionally Labour supporters that you want to attract - especially when the Labour voters in question here are 2010 ones - ie ones that Supported Brown against a liberal Conservative leader, as opposed to those who supported Blair against more traditionally conservative Tory candidates?

michael

He who pays the piper calls the tune.

lescam

David Miliband must be chortling his head off.

Revenge is a dish best served cold.

Halcyondaze

Cameron certainly does NOT have the support of 97% of Tory voters! Not the one's I'm speaking to anyway!

They feel disappointed, exasperated and infuriated by his weak, left-leaning, de-toxifying brand of centre-ground-ism - and they see ever-increasing parallels between this current crop of Tory teflon PR men and women and the Blair shower that got us into this mess.

Seriously - if the Spectator team think 97% of Conservative voters support Cameron they really need to take a day-trip outisde of London!

Dennis Churchill

Halcyondaze
January 12th, 2012 3:39pm
But if you ask them who they support out of Miliband, Clegg or Cameron?
Brand differential rather than real difference but as there is no real choice...

TrevorsDen

Labour do not want to be led - certainly not out of their comfort zone.

MLB

Ok i'm not a Ed Miliband Fan, and he was never supposed to be about some kind of future prime minister, he also did not expect to be chosen as Labour Leader, it was clearly a game that went too far. ed Miliband is about re-connecting with the past and cleansing the Labour party. All these David Miliband fan's such as my husband would be getting Tony Blair II ( Although Ed's treatment of his brother was totally wrong) It's just that kicking a man whilst he's down is just wrong even if that man deserves it.

MLB

I forgot to mention you say 97% Consevative voters support David Cameron. He is totally different from the man i voted for! he is also far too happy with being in a coalition. My hubby think's he is brilliant but i have a feeling that it is the lovely George Osborne the man who is a real Conservative who is trying to run the country, they just put the far more TV friendly David Cameron in front of the people ( Although he does show moments of great promise and strength) I think George Osborne should be PM.

M11

@MLB

So, out of sixty million people in the U.K. Osborne should be Prime Minister should he?

Chris lancashire

Will you please stop this Miliband kicking. You're going to get him fired.

Cynic

"[E]d Miliband is about re-connecting with the past and cleansing the Labour party." How far back does he have to go, MLB? As for cleansing the Labour party (aka as refusing to admit mistakes and re-writing history), I think he'd need to divert a river through it.

jon dee

I feel a significant U-turn coming on.

Ed is definately not as ugly as Humphrys hinted, nor too dopey-sounding to become Prime Minister.

Full of steel and grit, he should ignore this recent polling, which is merely a blip on his way to political stardom.

He must take a deep breath, using both nostrils if possible, rebut unwarranted criticism and remain Labour leader for ever.

Here's hoping.............

MLB

@ Cynic
The Great reformer is what Labour hope Ed Miliband will be, the rest of us see a weak, untrustworthy liar who jumps on bandwaggons , and someone who will say any thing to be popular, and just like his shadow chancellor Miliband hopes we have a short memory and will forget who caused the problems to start with,like we will give the matches back to the perpertrators who started the fire. And yes to the other gentleman George osborne will make a quite brilliant Prime Minister he did not chose to inherit an economy in this condition, he is doing the best he can with a bad situation.

Cynic

MLB, I can't fault your argument about Ed being someone who'll say anything to be popular (although I fear that accusation also applies to most in Westminster, in all parties).

Cynic

If Ed was trying for the Thinker pose in that photograph, he's blown it. He looks more like a man desperately trying to find an idea - any idea, no matter how crackpot! Where do you drag these wonderful images up from?

Archibald

Once, during a spell in the Caribbean, I was on the beach with a large young black woman from the midlands who had something of a reputation for being, ahem, a real 'gentleman's woman'. As a bloke of Mediterranean appearance paraded up the beach in speedos with what to the untrained eyed appeared to be an impressive bulge, she expertly ascertained that what we were in fact looking at was 'all balls, and a disappointing cock'. Every time I see the Labour front bench, I am reminded of this clinical appraisal.

Anan

I really don't buy this silly argument that the "beauty of the countryside" will be destroyed by the high speed rail lines. So you don't want rail? What about a new motorway then? Somehow, I'm sure the same grumpy malcontents will say the same thing even then!

Anan

Sorry, post above to wrong topic!!

Dimoto

Chris lancashire - Indeed !

Halcyondaze - you do understand that this was a poll, don't you ?

With the proclivities of YouGov, one could almost imagine that this poll is some sort of Brown-Balls plot to undermine Red.

Sir Everard Digby

Perhaps we should analyse these stats differently? Removing the party divide, the numbers suggest that the majority of the electorate do not rate either Millband or Cameron as Prime Minister material. Spot on in my view. Either of them thought about what the voters want a PM to do? Top of my list is look after the national interest above all others.

The key question is why do political parties continue to put people into positions of power whom the electorate can find precious little connection with?

It's all rather like watching a play where the script changes every hour so the plot becomes impossible to fathom -and performed by actors the audience believe are in the wrong roles.

Do the political classes have any clue about the real world?

Fergus Pickering

I note that the rabid faction here despise all politicians who try to do what the people want. What is needed, they thunder, is a brave politician who will do what WE want.