Ed Miliband is doing good work demolishing Donald Trump – but let’s remember he’s no leader

Last Updated: February 4, 2017By

Ed Miliband called on Theresa May to challenge Donald Trump on climate change during Prime Minister’s Questions [Image: PA].

To be honest, This Writer liked Ed Miliband when he was in charge of the Labour Party.

But he made too many big mistakes – major concessions to the virtually-Tory neoliberal right-whingers who practically neutered the party in the run-up to the 2015 general election. He’s no leader.

That is something we’ll all need to remember while his star is on the rise again. He had his chance. And he didn’t get behind Jeremy Corbyn, except to stab him in the back.

So let’s give praise where it’s due, by all means. But don’t let’s let it go too far.

‘Milifandom’ is again stirring. Articles have appeared deeming him “hot”. He has even won fans in the United States.

This revival of warm-feeling for Mr Miliband has rocketed over the last week largely due to his no-nonsense castigations of Donald Trump’s administration.

Ahead of Theresa May’s visit to the US, the former Labour leader called on the Prime Minister to challenge Mr Trump on climate change.

“Can I ask her to reassure us that she will say to the president that he must abide by and not withdraw from the Paris climate change treaty. And in case it is helpful, can she offer the services of UK scientists to convince the president that climate change is not a hoax invented by the Chinese?”

Source: Donald Trump is ‘unstable’ says Ed Miliband

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14 Comments

  1. sonya lippold February 4, 2017 at 3:04 am - Reply

    Ed Miliband was brutally made fun of by the press, bacon sandwich eating
    what political point was made – zero, bullies are winning, Corbyn equally dishonoured.
    If I had to choose, Ed is more electable, and an equally decent, man, whose rhetoric against Cameron was more targeted and effective .

    • Mike Sivier February 4, 2017 at 11:13 am - Reply

      But he was completely unable to handle the right-whingers in his own party and their sub-Tory policies.
      He, and they, kept the millions of people Tony Blair had driven away from Labour from coming back. It is Mr Corbyn whose policies have reversed that trend.
      Now, it is perfectly reasonable to say that Corbyn isn’t the best leader Labour could have now, but that would offer the right-whingers a chance to put one of theirs back in and drive away all the good people Corbyn has attracted. Which of Labour’s LEFT-wing MPs would you choose to replace him?

      • Simon February 4, 2017 at 12:02 pm - Reply

        Mike. Jeremy Corbyn seems not to be able to inspire loyalty or handle those on the right, left and centre of the Labour party any better than Miliband. Only last week 47 Labour MPs, including two Labour whips, nine Labour front benchers, and Dianne Abbott pulling a sickie, defied their leader’s authority under a three line whip and did not vote for the government’s bill preparing the way to trigger article 50.

        Are you claiming this is an example of good leadership?

        Or that all of the rebels, including those earmarked by the Labour leader himself, to be a part of a Corbyn led government post 2020, are “Blairites”, or “right wingers”, or whatever and so can be discounted and disregarded?

        Have a word with yourself, Mike, for goodness sake.

        • Mike Sivier February 4, 2017 at 12:20 pm - Reply

          Mr Corbyn certainly seems to inspire people to join Labour, though, doesn’t he? If membership number are dropping off at the moment, they could be attributed to natural wastage or annoyance at the behaviour of rebels against him.
          Mr Corbyn’s leadership was not at fault when he imposed the three-line whip on the Article 50 Bill. If you think so, you misunderstand the strategy and need to rethink your beliefs about it.
          Of course, I didn’t say anything about all of the rebels in this particular vote being “Blairites” or “right wingers”. You are trying to conflate two different lines of protest against Mr Corbyn within the party.
          It seems you are the one who should be having a word with himself. Stop trying to confuse the issues and confound your fellow readers.

      • Simon February 4, 2017 at 5:13 pm - Reply

        Members of political parties do not elect governments. As far as party memberships go Labour’s is large (about 540,000) although tiny and insignificant compared to the size of citizens eligible to vote (about 30,700,000). About 1.36% of eligible voters are card carrying Labour party members. And this is the problem. Corbyn has great appeal to a small number of enthusiasts and too little appeal to outsiders.

        Plus if Corbyn can’t even manage to convince all of the people he hand picked to actually work with and support him in government what chance is there that enough of general non-card carrying members of the public will get behind him in big enough numbers to make him Prime Minister?

        The size of the Labour party is no more a guarantee of electoral success than the wealth of the Conservative party and what happened in parliament last week was a massive embarrassment auguring poorly for the future.

        • Mike Sivier February 4, 2017 at 6:58 pm - Reply

          Non sequitur. Just because the size of Labour has grown, that doesn’t mean the number of Labour voters hasn’t.
          We all know Corbyn’s Labour is plagued with right-wing backstabbers. Hopefully they’ll be out, come the general election.

  2. Simon February 4, 2017 at 11:54 am - Reply

    In fairness Ed Miliband was way ahead of Jeremy Corbyn in every poll during the same stage of the electoral cycle as leader. Do you really believe that Jeremy Corbyn is a leader, Mike? Really? Do you really think that Labour will have more MPs after the next general election than it won under Ed Miliband in 2015?

    • Mike Sivier February 4, 2017 at 12:16 pm - Reply

      Do you really think I know the answer to your last question, Simon? Really? Do you really think you do? Do you really think it matters that Ed Miliband was ahead of Jeremy Corbyn at the same stage of the electoral cycle? Really? Do you really believe that Ed Miliband, or any of the right-wingers who lost to Mr Corbyn, are leaders? Really?
      Do you really think putting “really?” at the end of a sentence is a clever, intelligent or adult thing to do? Really?

      • Simon February 4, 2017 at 5:25 pm - Reply

        Sorry, Mike. Incredulity is to blame. Whenever I words like “Corbyn” and “leader” appearing in the same paragraph I can’t stop short interrogative sentences like “Really?”, “Is this a joke?”, or “Shurely shome mishtake?” from popping into my mind. And sometimes they leak out and become visible to other. It’s involuntary. I can’t help it. Please accept my apologies.

        • Mike Sivier February 4, 2017 at 5:47 pm - Reply

          You’ve got a serious problem there.

    • Mervyn Hyde (@mjh0421) February 4, 2017 at 9:59 pm - Reply

      Simon forgets that in the short space of time Jeremy has become leader he has completely transformed the economic outlook of the country, in all the five years of Ed Miliband all we heard was more of the same, Austerity was his key platform. Whilst also not forgetting that Jeremy did this whilst 172 of his MPs were stabbing him in the back.

      Did Ed Miliband attract hundreds of thousands of people to join Labour, creating Labour as the largest political party in Europe?

      Simon thinks that people just vote for a leader, whilst that can be an asset what people are craving in this country is an honest leader, that is why Jeremy drew huge crowds and Owen Smith could only muster enough people to fill the average household living room.

      The mass media are currently starving Jeremy Corbyn of news coverage because they know the more people hear him the more they like him, but anyone who is willing to talk him down is given wall to wall coverage, hoping that the more people see him being put down the more they will believe it.

      In the end the people of this country will have to choose between a government that has consistently lied to them or someone that offers hope, truth, and a future.

      Anyone else only offers poverty and indebtedness.

  3. Barry Davies February 4, 2017 at 12:00 pm - Reply

    Sounds like Milliband was just spouting what the populist mob want to hear, May can’t tell Trump how to act she may give him gentle advice but has no power to enforce anything. Just which UK Scientists will she offer the ones who claim that the climate change which has been occurring for millennia before man appeared is man made or the ones who say it is a natural phenomenon and there is no evidence to support the claim.

    • Mike Parr February 4, 2017 at 8:16 pm - Reply

      Name some UK climate scientists “who claim that the climate change which has been occurring for millennia before man appeared” – hint – there are none.
      As for persuading Trump – waste of time – the man is a bully, liar & fantasist – nothing she says will make one iota of difference – best thing would have been to stay well away & done a tit for tat with respect to UK citizens barred from the USA – except she could have barred US bankers..

    • Martin February 5, 2017 at 9:43 am - Reply

      Climate change did occur naturally in the past, sometime violently, for causes that are not present now, e.g., volcanism and changes in the earth’s axis. The climate change we are experiencing now is mostly being driven by pollution arising from human industry. In the whole history of mankind there has never been a greater consensus of scientific opinion and data about anything – not the consensus of the mob but international universal consensus amongst pretty much all of the most significant, brilliant and best qualified people on the globe that climate change is real and driven these days mostly by human activity. There are no significant figures or meaningful data to support any valid contrary view.

      Trump has a miserable little Bachelor’s third-rate degree in economics.

      I wonder who is right about climate change?

      Every post-doctoral scientist on earth or an ignoramus like Trump?

      I know where I’d put my money and bet my life and those of my children.

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