Abnormal Miliband?

TrevorH

AS Hague does not want to be leader of his party again it makes him an ideal deputy (as long as he has faith in the actual leader). He will be good for the party.

This is where Blair went wrong - his de facto deputy was hell bent on usurping him.

Whitelaw was invaluable to Thatcher in this respect and when he retired she and the party began to struggle.

As she said, every PM needs a Willy.

ACT

The Spectator is verging on the pathetic at the moment.

albert son of a gypsy!

Is this Hague's subliminal message to his supporters' I AM READY?

Is Hague doing a Milliband?
Should Call me Dave be concerned?

Will Call me Dave reshuffle his team now?

Is Call me Dave a worried man?

Familiar Clown

If Prince William can wear a baseball cap and appear 'normal'
why can't anyone else (apart from the Queen of course)?

James J

Come on, it’s true.Miliband is weird.
Whether you consider his family background, Eastern European/Belgian Marxist philosophers or going to the USA to be at the birth of his adopted children…don’t we have any children in need of adoption here? He is hardly going to be identified by a marketing company as a representative member of even our untypical political class.

Liz Brown

Hague is correct in his summation
The Millipede gives me the creeps FULL STOP

mitch

Milliband normal!!! he looks,sounds and is weird his beliefs such that they are must be very odd.

Verity

Liz Brown, agreed.

In a wider sense, why is wearing a baseball cap when you don't play baseball considered a mark of normality? I think every Briton - and now they've got a whole police force full of them somewhere - who wears a baseball cap looks absolutely ridiculous to me, and that includes Prince William. In fact, when I see a Brit wearing a baseball cap, I instantly despise them, and that goes for Prince William. (The only one I didn't despise was William Hague, because it obviously went against the grain and he was doing it on bad advice.)

It shriekds insecurity and wannabee.

Whatever you think of the French, they don't tog themselves out in baseball caps.

Justin

What's your problem, ACT?

It's a funny observation and has a point to it too. Don't try to be something you're not because the public will see through it. To his credit, William Hague now realises this.

Look at Quentin Letts' observations on Muppetbland recently where he made a similar point. Milibland has tried to copy Blair's gestures and vocabulary down to the last tee, but it doesn't work because he's not Blair.

A politician without their own identity is never going to succeed.

What makes me sick whenever I see him is remembering the speech he gave when he talked about "our promise" to let Turkey into the EU. "Our"? When did I promise that? There's nothing I'm more likely to not promise.

What arrogance to talk about "our" promise. Here's my promise to you, Mupetboy, you'll not be having my vote.

Max Kaye

What's with Milipede's shady moustache?

Is he trying to grow it or just forgotten to shave it off? (Surely he's not attempting the 'Arafat/Radical Chic' look?)

ACT

My point's very simple - onceuponatime the Speccie never gave vent to Millibashing, now it does, heaps and heaps of it. You could almost date the switch-a-roo. And it's tediously creeping by those who debase themselves doing it.

It puts me in mind of all those News International peons who likewise humiliate themselves by 'anticipating' Lupert's wishes, without, therefore, him even having to tell them to do something degrading.

So Peter, and everyone else, drop this grisly Millicrap - seriously, you're embarrassing *everyone*.

Verity

Justin - "To his credit, William Hague now realises this."

To his credit, William Hague always realised it. He looked uneasy because he knew it was phony and he is a man not given to being phony. It was clear that he was wearing that baseball cap at the behest of "advisors" and not because he had any personal inclination to do so.

Anglica

Ad ACT: Thank you!

Perhaps Coffee Housers elicited pity for Daniel, 'den' - in his role as protagonist for the euSSR!

Daniel's antagonists, some may fear, can also synthesize a script which arises from passion, but which scorns to wallow in emotion. They are antagonists whose culture informs analysis of their suffering and its causes; whose language empowers their perception of Veritas in the matter; and who begin to realize their struggle - through their roles as Spectator bloggers.

Pathetic indeed.

Dizzy Dolly

Interesting, Justin.

And if Milli is a copy of a fake, he is doubly doomed - isn't he? His 'immanence' is forever trapped in a hall of mirrors!

Wilfred

Actually Max, I think he's just getting to the stage where he really ought to shave each week. It comes to us all eventually.

Tilly Doberman-Pincher

Call Me Dave is an excellent politician, but he would look like a purse-lipped girl in disguise if he were to wear a baseball cap. Nothing normal about that. The floral shorts were bad enough. Were they Samantha's?

Ann

Liz and Verity: agreed.

Verity

Angelica - Comprehensive girl, then? Any chance of a translation when you're sober?

Is Dizzy Dolly your doppelganger, btw?

ian skidmore

In Verity veritas. She is quite right. Basball Caps betray an immaturity and longing to be thought American. And Prince Harry and William look like a pair of prats in them. I am surprised their father does not wear one.
In not wanting to lead his party show maturity and wisdom.

Marian C

Verity @ 2:45 - Agreed, well said

The Laughing Cavalier

I fear that the Milliboy has already done for himself by breakdancing for a television advertisement

Frank Pulley

I thought we had already sabotaged the political ambitions of this little hot-house Marxist by exposing his pedigree. The whole point of the Gramscian methodology is that it should be stealthy, sub rosa and subversive. Surely once a mole's head has appeared above the surface and has been stamped on it is time to move on to others still burrowing away, building their muckheaps of ideology. Why are we wasting our time kicking a dead mole (particularly as we got two-for-the-price-of-one on this deal)?

This dead, red mole is liable to transmogrify into a red herring if we are not careful. Shouldn’t we stop giving it the kiss of life?

Verity

Wise words from Frank Pulley. This mole is now hors de combat. Let's keep an eye out for the next little pair of greedy eyes glinting ... glinting ... above the surface ...

Anglica

Anglica, Verity.

Pity you have to attack decent people from your own side; it bodes ill for Britain.

I think no one could be quite as comprehensive as you.

I don't do vino, drugs, et al; my veritas springs from school Latin: early, grammar, and later.

There still are some good dictionaries out there.

The rest refers to the Process of Writing.

I don't speak German.