Ed Miliband wins Labour Leadership

amcluesent

Well at least the discredited hard-left of Labour are pleased their man is in!

Kinnockio's not been so happy since he read about all the expenses EU commissioners could claim for!

"Oh, Ed! Glenys never does that, she says it's too mucky!"

wymondham

Who is Ed Milliband?

He's got his work cut out ... with me anyway!

madnessofBruno

I find politics and politicans bland today. A link to Neil Kinnock 1985 speech to a Labour conference when we had some grit in this country.
For the record my politics lean to the right, however I do admire the passion from both side at that conference.

wwwdotyoutubedotcom/watch?v=bWLN7rIby9s

CLAPTON

Kohoutek wrote: »

So what? So has Cameron mate.

When you're supposed to be a candidate for running the country, experience is far more important than your degree classification.

Ed's CV:

Oxford
Harvard
Harriet Harman's speechwriter
Gordon Brown's speechwriter
MP for Doncaster North
Energy Minister (briefly, achievements?)

Why can political parties select people that have had a life outside politics? Cameron and the other Labour candidates are not much better in that respect, but the idea of Ed Milliband being qualified to run the country with his experience is absurd.

very unfashionable to say this but pay peanuts get monkeys

one of the biggest reasons that no-one who has been reasonably successful in 'ordinary life' will stand for parliment, is that the pay and conditions are just not very good to justify the mindless personal attacks and short career prospects.

marklv

GeneHunt wrote: »

What's so funny?

Elections are won from the centre. Labour won under Blair by appealing to the centre. The Tories "won" under Cameron, when he (and Osbourne) shifted to the centre. Michael Foot, Michael Howard and William Hague all lost because they pandered to their hardcore voters (and were personally unappealing in many ways).

Elections are not necessarily won from the centre - look at 1945! Labour was a lot more left wing than now and still won a landslide. Even under Harold Wilson Labour was much more to the left than the current lot, including Ed Miliband. Politics should be about giving people choice, not pushing essentially the same policies under different hats. Otherwise it's just a beauty contest.

marklv

madnessofBruno wrote: »

I find politics and politicans bland today. A link to Neil Kinnock 1985 speech to a Labour conference when we had some grit in this country.
For the record my politics lean to the right, however I do admire the passion from both side at that conference.

wwwdotyoutubedotcom/watch?v=bWLN7rIby9s

Personally, I like Neil Kinnock - he has bags of charisma. I don't agree with him on a host of issues but I think he would have made a good PM, certainly better than Brown.

As for this left and right talk, it's really becoming outdated. I'm extreme right wing on probably all issues except the economy, when I swing sharply to the left.

marklv

kabayiri wrote: »

Like it or not, we need more people skilled in IT and engineering, and things which earn this country money and reputation abroad.

Rubbish. There are already thousands of unemployed skilled IT people in Britain, whose jobs have been taken by overseas outsourcers. The skills largely exist in abundance, and where they don't the knowledge can be imparted in training courses. The real problem is this obseession with driving down costs - at any cost.

Exocet

On a slightly different tack am interested in this "he's got no experience to run the country". I was of this opinion for a while until I thought about it rather than swallowed it. The common complaint seems to be "he's only ever been in politics". So er a politician climbs to the top of the political ladder? Seems to make some sense. Who else would be more qualified I wonder and from what walk of life? A road sweeper, a banker, a celebrity perhaps like Richard Branson? Maybe a B movie actor, or someone important's son?

Maybe me. Vote for me. I have never done anything in politics.

Kohoutek

CLAPTON wrote: »

very unfashionable to say this but pay peanuts get monkeys

one of the biggest reasons that no-one who has been reasonably successful in 'ordinary life' will stand for parliment, is that the pay and conditions are just not very good to justify the mindless personal attacks and short career prospects.

True, but it's also the nature of the Parliamentary system itself.

In the US for example, ministers cannot be members of the legislature, whereas in the UK, minister must be members of the legislature, usually from the same political party as the PM. The result is that in the US, ministers have invariably had careers outside government beforehand, often in the area relevant to their department.

Compare Gordon Brown's minister for energy (Ed Miliband) with Obama's energy secretary (Steven Chu). Prior to Ed Miliband's appointment, his only experience was as a speechwriter. Prior to Steven Chu's appointment, he was a physicist in the private sector, then a professor of physics, winning a Nobel Prize.

Our system puts people that have no technical or management experience (notionally) in charge of enormous complex organisations. Andy Burnham's only work experience outside parliamentary politics is a special adviser and he was put in charge of the NHS.

Thrugelmir

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

, the obvious thing to do to win again is to elect a continuity New Labour candidate to carry on with more of the same.

More of the same? New Labour is dead. Ed Milliband will rapidly bury it and as his victors speech yesterday demonstrated will distance himself from it as fast as he can.

This is a New Beginning for the Labour party........where will it end though?