Relax, comrades: David Miliband is Blairesque, rather than Blairite
Matthew d'Ancona reviews the week in politics
One Cabinet minister described it to me with dark wit as the ‘Eden Project’: the idea being that, after a summer of reflection, Gordon Brown is gently or not-so-gently persuaded to retire, in the manner of Anthony Eden, on the grounds of ‘ill health’. To which the PM’s entirely predictable response is: have you seen how many press-ups I can do? The revelation that he has hired a personal trainer may have been clunky, but it was a clear signal that he is not going to oblige those who would like him to quit on medical grounds.
I would call the first round of the great Miliband–Brown bout a dead heat. The Foreign Secretary achieved what no other Cabinet minister has done before him, which was to force Gordon to call off his attack dogs. One day, ‘allies’ of the PM were smearing Miliband as ‘disloyal and self-serving’. The next, Number 10 was issuing a statement to say how the Foreign Secretary was spot-on in his analysis of the challenge facing the government.
That said, last weekend belonged to Mr Brown. He moved the narrative away from regicide and towards the reshuffle. More ominously for Mr Miliband, the Brownites had considerable success in spinning his antics as the work of the disenfranchised Blairites. The leak to the Mail on Sunday of a memorandum attributed to Tony Blair, attacking Mr Brown’s performance at last year’s Labour conference, suggested the existence of a Blairite plot to defenestrate the PM, and naturally encouraged those already predisposed to see Mr Miliband as the youthful marionette of shadowy puppeteers from Tony’s ancien regime (puppeteers such as Alan Milburn, who was tipped this week to be Chancellor in a Miliband Cabinet). If the Foreign Secretary is perceived to be merely the front man for a restorationist faction, he is doomed.
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D Webster
August 7th, 2008 8:24amCalling the Milliband/ Kozak axis 'part of the Labour tribe' stretching things a bit, Miliband Sr. is usually best remembered for his antagonism to the mainstream 'Labour' movement and its accommodations to power.
Searcher
August 7th, 2008 1:42pmThe apple doesn't fall far from the Marxist tree.
Vespasian
August 8th, 2008 3:46pmTony Blair English? Since when does being Scotish make you English?
Robert
August 18th, 2008 12:42pmIf Blair is the Poodle then Milli Vanilli is a Chihuahua those pop eyes give it away.
john problem
August 28th, 2008 5:53pmMilburn for Chancellor? Of course. He was/is a Trotskyite and Trotsky separated from the Bolsheviks because they were for robbing banks to fund the party which Trotsky was not. Good news, eh?