David’s dithering dilema
He had his chance last year to rid this country of Gordon Brown. David Miliband dithered and then declined.
Role on a year. Having had weeks to contemplate what he would do if his little brother beat him to the finishing line …he then gets beat and dithers again for 4 days! The Liberals and Conservatives didn’t take much longer to create a whole coalition agreement. And after all that navel-gazing his decision is, apparently, to do, what he initially thought he would do 4 days earlier.
Once the crocodile tears have dried, Labour must surely be absolutely delighted that he did not end up in charge. He may be clever, but shows very little political judgement. Twice he has been asked to step up to the plate, twice he has dithered and twice he has made the wrong decision. Lucky escape for Labour.
As for the country, well, you really wouldn’t want that sort of a ditherer in charge? Blair might have been too gung ho…but a ditherer? (Maybe that explains his reluctance to start attacking the deficit anytime soon…why do now what you can put off for another year or so?).
I am told by my Labour friends in the know, that High Command are fuming that he totally drowned out all other news relating to conference as he “pondered” his future. They might have swallowed it had he decided to stay…but to then turn round and throw his toys out of his pram was a bit much. One interesting suggestion made to me was that the reason for the delay was actually less dithering and more debating – brother to brother. Any chance there was a protracted negotiation about the role Big Brother might take and more specifically how much freedom he would be given to operate within that role. Little Brother may not have given Big Brother a big enough playpen to play in perhaps?
September 30th, 2010 at 10:58 am
I think this may be a bit mean, Sara. While I agree that David Milliband twice missed his opportunity, I do feel genunie sympathy for him, and I can imagine that it was a very tough decision to leave front line politics.
Of course, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating – does he remain quietly on the backbenches or does he become a focus for trouble.
But for now, I think we should show a bit more sympathy.
October 1st, 2010 at 11:27 am
Well Angela, maybe there was a bit more to it, and on several levels.
Firstly, knowledge that the media focus during the ensuing three days would be on his dilemma/decision, largely crowding out coverage of the conference and the new leader, influenced him to ensure that this was exactly what happened – possibly he’s a little more ruthless and steely than he’s given credit for (although he certainly hasn’t demonstrated it in the past).
Secondly, he may well have been calculating that, having been the clear choice of the MPs, MEPs and individual party members, as distinct from the creature of the public-sector unions, it might not be too many years before an election defeat caused by the seemingly imminent and inevitable leftwards move of the new regime leads to him being recalled as the more centrist, and therefore more electable, option. Possibly he’s a little more Machiavellian than he’s been given credit for.
And thirdly, he may have been weighing up this agonising choice – do I want to spend the next five years cooped up in dreary committee rooms listening to irrelevant platitudes of left-wing orthodoxy from fraternal comrades such as the likes of Dinosaur Woodley, Bug-Eyed Blinky Balls and Harridan Harperson? Or do I want to spend them with the utterly beautiful, prodigiously talented and refreshingly normal and balanced Louise? No contest – mind you, it wouldn’t have taken me even three minutes to resolve that one………
October 2nd, 2010 at 4:55 am
Tom…Is it “cos I is a girl”… that you can’t tell me (the blond one) from Sara (the sexy younger one)?
October 2nd, 2010 at 8:11 pm
Oh Papworth! You’re a cracker!!
October 3rd, 2010 at 12:28 pm
Whoops! Don’t know how I managed to do that.