Leader of the lemmings

2 August 2008

The Spectator on the Labour leadership speculation

To be fair, Mr Miliband tried to address the deficit in a Guardian article on Wednesday, calling upon his colleagues to be ‘humble about our shortcomings’ but to ‘stop feeling sorry for ourselves’. The Foreign Secretary was right to demand that the government ‘distribute more power and control to citizens over the education, healthcare and social services they receive’. But New Labour has been promising such reform since its inception in 1994. Nor will Mr Miliband’s insistence that the ‘Broken Society’ is a Tory myth ring true with the voters who actually live on the streets of this society. And his claim that ‘you need government to act as a catalyst’ sounds ominously like old-fashioned statism resprayed a charming pastel.

At least Mr Miliband is trying: not so most of his colleagues. The Prime Minister complains that the media’s coverage of politics is ‘Namierite’. Yet his is a government of second-generation placemen, grown soft on perks, more interested in John Lewis than Joe Public. And this in turn helps to explain why the battle to succeed Mr Brown is such a confused and sheepish business. For who, in truth, would rationally covet such a job, in such circumstances? It is a fool’s mission, after all, to lead a bunch of lemmings.

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L Greaterman

August 1st, 2008 7:51pm Report this comment

Our Broken Society is no 'Tory myth'; indeed, the Tories are right behind Labour (their usual position anyway) when it comes to deserving blame for the wrecking of our once great nation.

Stephen

September 6th, 2008 1:28pm Report this comment

L. Greatrman repeats this odd myth. That our society is in some way broken. I don't think it is. There maybe problems but broken? Afghanistan is a broken society not ours. We don't know how well off we are in this country if we imagine our society is broken.

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