François Hollande is at an all-time low after the Socialist government’s “Monsieur Propre” (Mr Clean), Jérôme Cahuzac, admitted to having a “bank account abroad” for the past two decades. The former budget minister with responsibility for cracking down on tax dodgers admitted to holding €600,000 in an illegal offshore bank account at UBS Switzerland. Hollande is now facing questions about exactly what he knew and when. Scandals are arguably the least of Hollande’s worries. His flagship 75% top rate of tax has been ruled unconstitutional, wealth creators and film stars alike are fleeing his tax tyranny. This week his new supertax on companies has been shunned by business leaders, and even the left-wing press are abandoning him. As unemployment hits a 16-year high, Hollande’s approval rating is at a record low for any leader so early into his mandate. France is suffering from the disastrous consequences of electing the socialist president.

Where is Ed Miliband in all this? Last summer Ed was welcomed onto the steps of the Elysee Palace by his new best friend, declaring:

“What President Hollande is seeking to do in France and what he is seeking to do in leading the debate in Europe is find that different way forward. We are in agreement in seeking that new way that needs to be found and I think can be found.”

As is plain for all to see, Hollande’s “different way forward” is dragging his country to her knees. Even Ed knows this, notice how he doesn’t seem to talk about his old pal François so much any more? France should serve as a warning to us all of what would happen under Monsieur Millibande…

How convenient that “fascist” Di Canio gave David Miliband the perfect chance to loudly leave his £25,000 job at Sunderland Football Club on a matter of principle. How convenient too, that the former Labour-leader-in-waiting is getting away just at the time widespread anger is boiling over in Africa at the club’s sponsor: a sponsor that David Miliband secured. Regular readers will remember Tullow Oil.

According to the Guardian, David played a vital role in forging the Sunderland deal with Tullow, the African oil firm who have been humiliated this week after accusing the Ugandan President of being involved in a $50 million bribe, leading to the company making a grovelling apology.

This sort of hiccup cannot have gone down too well with Miliband’s other employers – he is an advisor to African leaders through Tony Blair’s African Governance Initiative. Along with his escape to New York, a cynic would say Miliband saw a perfect excuse to spin this one…

“You’re brothers for life… it’s important we try to conduct ourselves in the right way.” Ouch…

Via @liarpoliticians

So farewell then, David Miliband. We are about to hear from the man himself on the TV, but before then Labour’s good, bad and ugly, as well as some old friends from further afield, have been out in force to give him a rousing send off:

Tony Blair: “I hope and believe this is time out not time over.”

Alastair Campbell: “David Miliband will make big contribution in new US role. Sad for UK politics but understandable and takes away sibling story distraction.”

Peter Mandelson: “I don’t think this is the end for David Miliband. If I can come back he can. You should not rule him out.”

Ed Miliband: “We went through a difficult leadership contest but time has helped to heal that. I will miss him. But although he is moving to America, I know he will always be there to offer support and advice when I need it.”

Damian McBride: “David Miliband will go down as the Errol ‘Bomber’ Graham of UK politics: the best of his generation but no chin when it mattered. His huge moment was Summer 2008; GB was massively destabilised by his Guardian article; but we monstered him cos of his timidity.”

Ed Balls: “To David Miliband and Louise in NY, the best of luck – friends and close colleagues for over 20 years, we’ll all miss him in Parliament.”

Douglas Alexander: “David Miliband and I first became friends as students, before either of us had met Tony Blair or Gordon Brown and long before anyone talked about New Labour. Twenty five years on, he remains one of my closest friends in politics and in life.”

Chuka Umunna: “Very sad that one of Labour’s strikers has left the field.”

John Mann: “It’s fascinating how MPs who quit Parliament always see politics about themselves rather than about constituents.”

Bill Clinton: “I have known David almost twenty years. He is one of the ablest, most creative public servants of our time.”

Nick Clegg: “He was one of the few big characters in Labour who understood that an opposition can’t just shout but has to come up with an alternative.”

Jim Murphy: “The understandable fascination by the media and others on the relationship between David and Ed Miliband was really hampering whatever he could say, and also getting in the way on occasion on what Ed Miliband was trying to achieve. So I think it’s the sensible thing for him to do.”

Ivan Lewis: “By putting interests of party 1st David Miliband has shown the class + integrity his friends so admire. Alternative, never ending soap opera.”

Austin Mitchell: “Dont go Dave. Your party needs U. NY is so far from Ed. So close to Mensch.”

Dan Hodges: ”David Miliband realised the game was up in January: his every move was seen as a knife in his brother’s back.”

You can read Guido’s goodbye here…

This morning Nick Robinson observed on the Today programme of David Miliband “He was not just the other brother, he was the New Labour brother.” Robinson also reported that one senior figure on the left of the Labour Party told him late last night: “It’s important for the left to avoid triumphalism but it obviously marks the date when New Labour finally accepted that the crisis requires us to turn the page… Now there can be no excuse for timidity [from Ed Miliband] because the Blairites are decisively weakened.”

Milburn, Reid, Purnell and now David Miliband are all gone as they see the writing on the wall, a frontbench packed with more supporters of Ed Balls than David Miliband despite him having won far more support from the parliamentary Labour Party. Dan Hodges identified it yesterday before the news from David Miliband – his brother Ed is a hostage to the left of his party together with the unions who put him in place and hold the purse strings. He can’t move towards the voters on policy without undermining himself and party unity. The Owen Jones digital Bennites are in the ascendant supported by the siren calls of Polly Toynbee, fronting the drive among activists for more left-wing policies – the inherent problem for a party with socialist activists far to the left of the electorate on, for example, welfare reform. As they rise in the polls and scent power the left becomes more furious in its policy demands…

Ed’s current poll lead means the left-wing of his party is in no mood for compromising with the electorate. The remaining Blairites like Liam Byrne are on the receiving end of vitriol last seen when Derek Hatton was in his prime. The unions are in no mood for moderation, Len McCluskey last week wrote to congratulate  the 44 MPs who defied a three-line party whip to vote against Liam Byrne’s official line on welfare reform.   They enjoy principled opposition, the Blairite accommodation with reality was an aberration, it matters not a jot to much of the rank and file that it was the most successful period in history for the Labour Party. The capacity of the Labour Party to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory is legendary – a left-wing Labour Party will not form a coalition government in 2015…

Hope South Shields ends up with a North East candidate who sees being an MP as an actual full-time service.—
Owen Jones (@OwenJones84) March 27, 2013

Above was how Owen Jones greeted the news of David Miliband’s exit from British politics. Tony Blair hints in his more generous statement of his fears “He is obviously a massive loss to UK politics… I hope and believe this is time out not time over.” It is over, all that remains for Labour moderates is for the last of them to switch off the light…

After a great deal of thought I’ve decided to accept the position of President and CEO of @theIRC: davidmiliband.net/2013/03/letter…—
David Miliband (@DMiliband) March 27, 2013

Standing down tomorrow to go head New York charity “International Rescue“.

Mirror has the scoop…

The papers are reporting this morning that Ed Miliband, Nick Clegg and David Cameorn were on the verge of agreement until Hugh Grant’s Hacked Off campaign lobbied Labour aggressively. This is the draft press release brandished by Hacked Off to put the wind up Ed Miliband if he went ahead with the deal:

Click to Enlarge

The language is ridiculous, Hugh Grant is a victim of his own making, calling on the Queen not to carry out her constitutional duty because he doesn’t want his picture in the papers any more is frankly comical. Hacked Off is a bunch of celebs who have been caught with their pants down hiding behind the genuine suffering of the McCanns and the Dowlers who were victims of real crimes which the police are already pursuing. Hacked Off won’t say who funds them, they are self-appointed and they are secretive with a sinister agenda to protect the rich and powerful from the prying eyes of the public.

Guido is opposed to all the proposals to control the press including the government’s misguided plan to enforce extra-territorial control of publications. We won’t be cooperating with any legislation that tries to control a foreign publication like this blog because it is, in the words of the Charter, “targeted primarily at an audience in the United Kingdom”. Imagine if the Soviets had tried to do the same to Radio Free Europe during the Cold War, or the Iranian regime demanded today to regulate the BBC’s Persian Service on the grounds that it is “targeted primarily at an audience in the Islamic Republic of Iran”.

Guido reminded Brian Leveson when he was giving his evidence that under the obligations of Article 19 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights as agreed by Britain in 1948

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

That is more important than preventing the paparazzi taking pictures of Hugh Grant on a bad hair day…

Ed Miliband is lurching to the right:

“One of the things we didn’t get right was immigration, and that’s why I’ve got a new approach. Millions of people in this country are concerned about immigration and if people are concerned about it, then the Labour Party I lead is going to be talking about it.”

Just yesterday Shadow Public Health Minister Diane Abbott blustered under the headline “There must be no right turn on immigration”:

“Sadly, immigration has served as a proxy for race in the British political narrative for so long, that it is still not possible to totally deracialise it.

There is no path to victory for the Labour Party in 2015 through the thickets of anti-immigrant politics and I am confident that Ed Miliband knows this.”

On message as ever.

Sometimes it’s impossible for a politician to avoid the Hague Rule – never get photographed in a hat:

An old favourite of Ed, but there’s a touch of Berlusconi to Dave in Delhi  today.