Miliband speech changes everything
Posted on
October 03, 2012 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Ed Miliband’s address to the Labour conference yesterday was billed as one which would completely alter the public perception of the party leader, and revolutionise whether voters saw him as a potential future Prime Minister or not. As you can clearly see from these two snapshots from a Scotland On Sunday poll on the subject, the strategy has been a spectacular success.
This image was from Tuesday morning, before the speech:
And here’s one from a few minutes ago, with the public having had a good 20 hours or so to digest both the speech and the media’s mostly-glowing reaction to it:
Go back to your homes and prepare for the next Labour government, readers. No rush.
yup, you cannot polish a turd as the saying goes!
“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which”
link to twitter.com
@balgayboy
Yes, but you can put red rosette on it and expect people to vote for it.
One Nation Toryism… Better Together?
link to twitter.com
@MajorBloodnok
True, but I thought that red rosette had turned blue now!
D’oh.
Rosettes were red
Now they’re all blue
All one-nation bastards
As enticing as poo.
(I just made that up.)
It was a speech designed to appeal to the controllers of Westminster governments-namely, the City Of London.
Any govt. in waiting needs their approval to be elected. Thus their policies have to be right wing neo-liberal. No chance of a fair, progressive society. Westminster is fast becoming a neo-mafia state.
One Notion Labour – to out Tory the Tories so that they have a chance of power at Westminster.
Loved this quote from Ed when talking about delivering his speech without notes, “In the end if you really believe something you don’t need [a text]”. Perhaps Johann will now stop reading from bits of paper at FMQ.
O/T: great article about Y-12 National Security Complex, the Fort Knox of nuclear facilities, demonstrating just how safe we are
If it’s all one nation, why the divisive crap about comprehensive and public schools and rich v poor?
I’d be more impressed about the lack of notes if it wasn’t for the fact that we all know fine he just committed a pre-written speech to memory. Wow, he can memorise an hour of waffle! Comedians memorise an hour’s worth of jokes – fortunately, they tend to have a better delivery.
The thing that really got me was when he highlighted the fact he had no notes at the start. What more proof does one need that it’s just a gimmick?
Of course, instead of memorising a few buzzwords and phrases (one in particular), perhaps he could write a speech with a bit of substance, rather than “blah blah what I say is this: my parents escaped the Holocuast blah blah what I say is this: I’m common guv’nor, even though I went to the same school as Boris Johnson, me ol’ mucker blah blah One Nation blah blah One Nation blah blah Juan Ney Shin blah blah what I say is this: bash the bankers although not really blah blah what I say is this blah blah what I say is this: One Nation blah blah what I say is this: know your fucking place you jock bastards blah blah blah…”
I don’t care if the political classes are dazzled by his ability to string a few words together – he’s still a monumental drip with no left-wing policies.
@Doug Daniel
His memory would be all the more remarkable if he could remember what Socialism is.
@Cuphook
Labour leadership definition of Socialism:
The redistribution of a Nations Wealth… [Message ends – that is all]
Going by this definitive description they have succeeded spectacularly in bringing about Labour Socialism by Socialising the Bankers Debts.
This is also why “Free Services” are not allowed according to the Labour leadership, because they prevent the further redistribution of wealth from the public to Labour Sponsors… who then redistribute some wealth to them.
@Cuphook,
“His memory would be all the more remarkable if he could remember what socialism is”.
Surely today’s leading candidate (so far) for comment of the day.
Something strange has happend since 2007. Role reversal. The Labour Party, that once great brotherhood of internationalists, has become a band of individual, right wing, British nationalists. They have narrowed their outlook to become one nation tories. By contrast, the SNP, once kown as the tartan tories, have now actually become far more left wing and internationalist in outlook, like a large, growing family. Isn’t life strange?
So, confidence in Miliband leapt from 24% to 38%!
(I’m counting the votes cast in between the two screenshots)
Are we being a bit harsh on old milliband ? He hasn’t forgotten any names at this year’s conference to my knowledge.
No scrap that, instead he’s forgotten what labour were meant to stand for.
@Luigi
“the SNP, once known as the tartan tories”
Don’t think so – that was just a pathetic Labour jibe then, as it is now. They tried to blame the SNP for their election defeat after losing a vote of confidence in the HoC. This was after they over-ruled the YES vote in the devolution referendum.
SAOR ALBA!!!
@Gnobhdi
I get 98 ‘yes’ and 257 ‘no’ in the second part. Total 355.
98/355 = 27.6%
257/355 = 72.4%
Think you have your sums wrong, sir! (Ma’am?)
To get that number from 355, you’d need 135 votes. Or 98/258. I suspect the latter is what you did. Apologies for being pedantic.
There was a very good point made about the Milliband speech by another poster here on the overnight thread which I think has been overlooked by most commentators so far.
Ed seems to have rather let the cat out of the bag with this admission:
“I want to be quite clear about this, Scotland could leave the United Kingdom. But I believe we would be far worse off as a result. Not just in pounds and pence but in the soul of our nation.”
As he wants to be quite clear about it and acknowledges that “we” ie. the RUK, are going to be worse off in financial terms, perhaps he would care to share the figures he has seen which have persuaded him of such an eventuality.
Will any journalist ask him?
Not one from the press in Scotland, anyway.
Nye Bevan, James Maxton, John Maclean: not one gets a look-in. Who does get an approving name-check in Miliband’s speech?
Benjamin Disraeli!
Vote Yes for an independent Scotland in 2014.
@Andrew,
Exactly. In fact, if you read the political memoirs/biographies of some of the leading British Labour politicians who were directly involved in the Labour government of 1974-79 – Jim Callaghan, Barbara Castle, Roy Hattersley, among others – not one of them blames the SNP for Thatcherism.
The two primary causes (of the increase in support for Thatcherism in the 1970s) were the so-called IMF ‘crisis’ in 1976, when the Labour government had to apply to the IMF for an emergence credit. As we know now, this happened because, not for the first time, the UK Treasury got its sums wrong. It was this event that consolidated the view, particularly in England, that Labour couldn’t be trusted on the economy.
The second event, of course was the so-called ‘Winter of Discontent’ when public sector trade unions went on strike across the UK. This was interesting because this event, too, was caused by the Labour government. Whilst in opposition in 1973-74, Labour had entered negotiations with the TUC to endorse a ‘Social Contract’ wherein, in return for wage restraint on the part of trade unions, a future Labour government would agree to increase the ‘social wage’, i.e. the non-wage benefits payable to workers through fiscal and welfare policy. The agreement was based on annual wage increases of no more than 10 per cent.
But because of the conditionality imposed by the IMF on the British government after the IMF crisis – reduced public spending was a core part of this conditionality – in 1978, the Labour government unilaterally broke the social contract and imposed a pay norm of 5 per cent on public sector workers. It was this action by the Labour government at the time that provoked the Winter of Discontent. With inflation at the time running at 10 per cent, this was the equivalent of a wage cut of 5 per cent in real terms for public sector workers.
This (the Winter of Discontent) was a gift to the Tories in 1978-79 but, shamefully, the Labour government at the time allowed trade unions to take all the flak for these events and, equally shamefully, Scottish Labour tried to pin the blame for Thatcherism on the SNP. As we now know, again because the UK Treasury got its sums wrong at the time, the Labour government in 1978 didn’t need to be so parsimonious with its imposition of a 5 per cent pay norm. It could have been more generous with its pay award and still satisfied IMF conditionality and prevented the Winter of Discontent. It was this event that also allowed the Tories to introduce their trade union reforms of the 1980s and 1990s and allowed Tony Blair to celebrate, in the pages of the Daily Mail no less, the fact that Britain had the most repressive labour legislation in the developed world.
Scottish Labour’s ‘tartan tory’ jibe at the SNP was just an example of the contempt that Scottish Labour had/has for the Scottish people. That is, Scottish Labour assumed that the Scottish people were ignorant of these events and that the Scottish people would buy Labour’s lie that Thatcherism was all the fault of the SNP when, in fact, Thatcherism was all the fault of the incompetence and mismanagement of the Labour government and the UK Treasury in the period 1974-79. Events that Scottish Labour colluded in with the British government. Yet another great betrayal of Scottish workers by Scottish Labour but this time, Scottish ‘old’ Labour.
Right. I’ve done an in-depth analysis of the above poll.
Conclusion is, Ed’s fecked.
Never mind what’s going to happen in Scotland, if Labour do go down the whole ‘we are one nation tories’ re-branding exercise, it could cause problems for them in England. After all, there are plenty of left wingers south of the border. Problem is, who on earth will they vote for?
As for Scotland, branding yourself any form if Tory is a really, really bad idea electorally. Even the old softer ‘one nation’ Tories / Scottish Unionists were on the way out in Scotland well before Thatcher’s rabid right-wing variety took over; the Tories dropped from 50% of the vote in 1955 to 25-30% by 1974-79; both they and Labour losing out to social liberal parties; i.e. the Lib Dems and the SNP.
Note the old Tartan Tory jibe was not entirely incorrect. At that time, the SNP were to the economic right of Labour, but only because the former were roughly economically centrist while labour were well left socialists. Certainly, as centrists, the SNP were not Tories by any means, more lib dems on a independence ticket. Not a lot has changed policy-wise between both parties since then, apart from the SNP leaning more left and the Libs straying more to the economic centre-right, particularly since the orange bookers took over. Hence the ease with which the SNP hoovered up lib voters last year.
@YesYesYes
That’s exactly how I remember it. I wonder how the Treasury managed to get its sums so (ahem) wrong?
Could this be the reason Milliband didn’t need a script?
link to order-order.com
I should note that when I talk about left, centre, right, liberal etc, I’m talking about the ‘global’ scale, not what Ed et al. do and talk about a centre when this is actually quite far right.
link to politicalcompass.org
@Andrew,
“I wonder how the Treasury managed to get its sums so (ahem) wrong”.
In fairness to the UK Treasury, I don’t think this is just a British issue. Even the US, whose economic data is much more comprehensive than the UK’s, gets its sums wrong.
There was an interesting exchange between Robert Chote of the Office for Budget Responsibility (formerly of the Institute for Fiscal Studies) and MPs at the Treasury Select Committee earlier this year. Chote was asked by an MP about the reliability of the OBRs forecasts for national debt. He replied that, although projections that the OBR made now (i.e. at the time) suggest that in 2015, the national debt may have increased by 1 per cent, the OBR could make projections in 6 months time that may amend that increase to 5 or 6 per cent. This was a refreshingly honest thing for Chote to admit. Economists can’t even explain the past accurately, never mind predict the future.
If anyone needs further evidence of this, they need only consider the most notorious example in recent history. A mere 24 hours before Lehman Brothers collapsed in 2008, the credit ratings agency, Standard and Poor’s, gave Lehman Brothers a triple A credit rating and commended Lehman Brothers for its robust and disciplined financial management!
This is worth remembering because, over the next two years, the British are going to be citing the arguments and economic projections mobilised by the UK Treasury to lend authority to unionist arguments. We need to remember that, at best, these projections are guesstimates that could change in a short period of time, at worst, they are best seen as a core part of British ideology. Fortunately, there is enough informed scepticism about mainstream economists’ work today and, equally fortunately, very few people pay any attention to what economists say.
Rather OT, sorry, but …
just out of interest – based on a recent poll which shows the SNP better placed than the LibDems IN THE NORTH OF ENGLAND! Is there anything preventing the SNP from fielding candidates in England?
Once you cut out the verses of Rule Britannia and his now becoming boring, “I’m the son of an immigrant”, tale this is what you’re left with:
But friends, in order to be able to afford to do that, we are going to have to work longer; have a later retirement age than we do now.
Labour are going to put the retirement age up.
…there will be many cuts that this Government made that we won’t be able to reverse…And in the next Parliament we will have tough settlements for the public services and that will make life harder for those who use them and harder for those who work in them.
Tory cuts are going to stay and Labour are going to cut more.
So I have got a message for the banks, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. Either you fix it yourselves between now and the election or the next Labour government will once and for all ensure that the high street bank is no longer the arm of a casino operation and we will break you up by law.
Self-regulation not legal enforcement is going to be the way Labour deal with the banks.
Here’s the choice that I want to offer to that 14 year old who is not academic…a new gold standard qualification so they know when they are taking that exam they have a gold standard vocational qualification, a new Technical Baccalaureate.
Labour are going to reorganise the English education system…again.
And when the public sector offers contracts to the private sector the next Labour government will ensure that every private sector contract will only be awarded to a large company that trains the next generation with apprenticeships.
What’s his definition of the weasel word, “large”, and is this going to be legal under EU tendering law?
And we need a new deal with British business. You get the money, you get control of the money for training, as you have long asked for, you set the standards, as you have long asked for. But you have a responsibility to make sure the training happens.
Labours going to hand over a lot of money to firms to train their own staff.
You see businesses tell me that the pressure for the fast buck from City investors means they just can’t take the long view. They want to plan one year, two years, ten years ahead but they have to publish their accounts in Britain every 3 months. In line with the wishes of the best of British business, we will end that rule so companies in Britain can take the long term productive view for our country.
Companies can delay their accounts for years.
Companies in Britain are far more easily bought and sold than in many other countries. Do you know that when a takeover is launched the hedge funds and the speculators can swoop in for a quick profit. They are not acting in the interests of firms or the nation. They are just in it for the fast buck. It is wrong and we will change it.
Fairly woolly. Labour are going to stop speculators but he doesn’t say how.
So let me be clear, let me be clear, the next Labour government will end the free market experiment, it will put the right principles back at the heart of the NHS and it will repeal the NHS Bill.
Labour are going to repeal the current English NHS Bill.
And that’s Labour’s big plans for the next general election.
The one bit that interested me was when he said,
But I believe we would be far worse off as a result. Not just in pounds and pence but in the soul of our nation.
Miliband thinks England will be worse off financially after Scotland leaves and which nation was he talking about, Britain or England, because the nation he’ll be living in after Scotland leaves is England plus NI and Wales. And come to that who is “we”? I take it he wasn’t talking about us Scots.