Ed Miliband is STILL sitting on the fence
As Labour leader, the most credible criticism of Ed Miliband is that he tried to please all the people, all the time – that he sat on the fence, as the saying goes.
It seems he has taken that philosophy to the backbenches with him. Take a look at the following stories, both from the Independent:
Ed Miliband has been overheard joking to party MPs that Jeremy Corbyn is an even worse Labour leader than he was.
In public, Mr Miliband has been assiduously silent about what he thinks about his successor’s performance so far.
But in private he is understood to have told one of the party’s MPs: “I bet you didn’t think things would actually get worse.”
Here’s the second:
Ed Miliband has launched a public defence of Jeremy Corbyn, arguing that the new Labour leader has in some respects strengthened the Labour party and that he has what it takes to become prime minister.
The former Labour leader promised not to be a “backseat driver” to his successor and praised shadow chancellor John McDonnell for taking forward his efforts to reform capitalism.
“I think [Labour] has a strength in depth in terms of our membership that we didn’t have before. Jeremy Corbyn has doubled our membership and I’ve seen that myself in my own constituency as a constituency MP and I think this is quite important,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
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Linking Milliband and Corbyn together as “losers” is a new strategy for the right wingers!
It is Beyond time this thing got the message,
Go anywhere you like Millpeed, just do not claim you are a Labour supporter, you have evidenced by your lies that you look down yer long Nose at mere ordinary and honest people, get lost you Wombat.
Glad you picked this story up Mike.
Don’t really see that the articles in themselves show Ed “sitting on the fence” – the first one was, I believe, originally broken by the Mail – it reports nothing other than the supposed comment to Stringer which is subject to a number of possible interpretations. In particular, Miliband did NOT say “Corbyn is a worse leader than I was” – that is deliberate distortion . It’s more likely that, if he said it at all, it was referring to the internal rows over the leadership – let’s not forget that Miliband himself was the subject of plots and criticisms from some MP’s in the run up to the General Election. – and not from the left! The second article is based on an interview given to BBC “Today” on Radio 4 and which can be taken to be his substantive position – that he backs Corbyn and calls on the Party to “get behind him”. I have even heard speculation (no more than that) that the forthright support for Corbyn in the BBC interview may have been at least partly the *result* of Stringer going to the press with the earlier comment – which could have been seen by Ed as the right breaking an agreement under which he kept out of the leadership issue. All in all, I regard this development as positive – although of course there are some anti-Corbyn voices who were also anti-Miliband now trying to talk up the harrative that Ed’s support “proves” that “Corbyn is rubbish”
I see it as Miliband still trying to placate everybody.
I actually took the ‘I bet you didn’t think things would actually get worse” to actually mean ”spin on that you right wing *@’&!! Aren’t ”smoking rooms” illegal?