Ed Miliband scores the cover interview for this week’s New Statesman. He finally joins the ever-growing list of Labour MPs who have, by pure coincidence, decided now is the time for a puff piece in which they pontificate about Labour’s problems, speak wistfully about their childhoods, and pose for weird pictures. If you want a job in the real world, you usually submit a CV. In Labour, you give a War and Peace-length interview to the New Statesman…
Miliband is careful not to mention his personal ambitions specifically. Luckily the New Statesman does it for him:
“Some of those who know Miliband are clear he has his eyes on becoming chancellor. Nigel Farage has told friends privately in recent weeks that he expects Miliband to become prime minister by 2027.”
Oh no, don’t put that in there…
He does at least admit he wants to smash the ming vase to pieces:
“We won on a modest, relatively safe platform,” Miliband went on. “That’s not meant as a criticism. It’s just a description of the facts.” Miliband mounts a defence of the government. Good things are happening, he promises.”
Most notable, however:
“Should Andy Burnham or Angela Rayner become the leader of Labour this year, they will not deviate from the script that Miliband has written.”
In other words: don’t forget who’s really running the show. He is even described as having “liquid charm“. The only line he might take issue with is his “remarkably enormous oblong of a head”…
Sarah Pochin at Reform Scotland’s manifesto launch event: “I really wanted to come on in a Reform tartan burka, but apparently I wasn’t allowed… One day let’s do one of these events not live-streamed. We’ll do all the naughty stuff…”