From this morning’s Times:
“The problem is never really the assaults from opponents. Certainly, it’s not a problem by comparison with sniping from behind. That’s a distraction.” He said the Blairites attacking Mr Miliband wanted to go back to the “day before yesterday”
Ignoring the 16 loony left MPs who wanted Labour to turn into Syriza on Monday, Prezza has intervened in the growing Labour row with his customary tact and delicate handling of internal party matters:
Mr Milburn criticised his party’s plans for the NHS and accused Ed Miliband of sticking to his “comfort zone”.
Mr Milburn also joined forces with another former Blairite minister, John Hutton, to attack Ed Miliband and Ed Balls for failing to defend New Labour’s economic policies.
Their comments sparked a furious backlash, with ex Deputy PM Lord Prescott accusing them of being “Tory collaborators.”
Consensus seems to be that Blairite former ministers are already preparing for a post-defeat civil war.
— Jim Pickard (@PickardJE) January 29, 2015
It’s pretty telling that the only people leaping to Ed’s defence today are Kinnock and Prescott.
Ed’s former PPS Chuka Umunna is out there – but he’s done a personal profile in Red magazine – which is a little wide of his Shadow BIS brief!
Where are the Shadow Cabinet?
Where are Ed’s praetorian guard?
Where are the 2010 intake, keen to support the leadership?
Ralph Miliband on the English…
“The Englishman is a rabid nationalist. They are perhaps the most nationalist people in the world.”
A massive 49% of voters say Labour would be more likely to win the election if they sack Ed Miliband and replace him with someone else. This morning’s damning YouGov poll for LBC says just 5% believe slotting the Ed now would harm Labour’s chances, compared with nearly half saying it would boost the party. Confirming everything mutinous Labour MPs are saying…
And it’s only Thursday…
Labour’s weekly conference call between election coordinator Douglas Alexander and the party’s regional organisers has been blighted with negative feedback about Ed Miliband for months. The local party hands report back on issues coming up on the doorstep during canvassing, and Alexander feeds that back to the top. Ed has apparently been the constant complaint, and the regional staff did not mince their words…
Except, well placed Labour sources reveal, someone has put a stop to all that. Guido hears that an official from Labour HQ – at the express behest of Douglas Alexander – rang the regional officers and told them to stop bringing up the criticism of the leader in the calls. Is an ostrich strategy better than no strategy at all?
Yesterday’s post-conference YouGov/Sunday Times poll put the Tories two points ahead of Labour and had Miliband personally trailing Cameron by 41 points. It clearly didn’t go unnoticed among friends of Alan Johnson, whom the Telegraph today reports are plotting to help mount a leadership bid to oust Ed before the election. Apparently “the rebels hope to convince him to stand if disaffection grows over the coming months while also building up enough support inside the party to convince Mr Miliband to stand aside”. For Alan is an honourable man…
The list of suspects is long. In the weekend papers Lord Gulan Noon slammed Miliband’s mansion tax as “hopeless and desperate”, Lord Levy described it as “totally inappropriate”, and donor John Mills said it would cause “all sorts of problems”. An anonymous Shadow Cabinet briefer sniped at Team Ed: “they are in the ideas business, the rest of us are in the winning-votes business”. Even Prezza piled in, attacking Ed as “far too timid” and saying of his policies “nothing sticks in my mind”. Calling all members of the Don’t Unseat Ed Miliband Association: code red…
