Dispelling the Miliband delusion

Ed Miliband and what passes for his leadership of the Labour Party have come under increasing scrutiny in the last few days. This scrutiny has lead to an increase in commentators on both the left and the right buying into a strange delusion, that David Miliband would have been a great leader of the current opposition.

Miliband minor is of course startlingly devoid of talent, ideas and stature.

At Prime Minister's Question Time he generally looks and sounds like an intern or a sixth former on work experience for the Labour Party. This is a far more serious image problem than an alleged resemblance to Wallace from "Wallace and Gromit".

His strategy as leader of the Opposition seems to be simply to shout "Tory cuts" as often as possible and to make a fool of himself by comparing the campaign to constantly increase public spending to that to end racial discrimination in the U.S.A. or South Africa.

He has also been criticized for coming to his current station thanks to the support of trade unions.

While it is true that Labour's current system of electing its leaders is absurd (it's rather like giving groups like the Countryside Alliance, the Taxpayers Alliance or the board of Next Plc a say in who should lead the Tory Party), the system is the same for everybody, something David Miliband surely new when he attempted to become Labour leader.

True, Ed Miliband did gain more trade union support than his brother, but he also received strong, if not majority, backing from Labour MPs and from the party membership.

David Miliband was not "robbed", to say he was is to assume the leadership was already his, which it wasn't. Indeed the chief criticism of David Miliband's campaign was that it was too complacent and made little or no effort to woo a handful of MPs whose support (due to the bizarre weighting system) would have made him leader instead of his brother.

One of the many criticisms from the Left of "Tory Toffs" like David Cameron is that they act like they are "born to rule". Sadly something similar could be said of David Miliband.

In fact both the Miliband brothers appear not so much "born to rule" as "raised to rule" by their Marxist father Ralph Miliband.

The pair of them were brought up on socialism, were involved in Labour politics at university and went into the world of professional politics almost straight after graduating.

Neither of them appear to have done anything remotely resembling a job in the real world and yet both strut around as if they know not only how that world works, but how to solve the problems of those inhabiting it.

Such criticisms could be made of other politicians of other parties, but it must be made of both Miliband brothers, particularly David, who for some reason is considered proper leadership material.

Why this is remains a mystery.

In the past David Miliband's leadership ambitions were seemingly thwarted by the fact that he once had his photo taken with a banana in a way that made him look a wally.

This too is mystery. Does David Cameron never hold bananas? Did Margaret Thatcher and Anthony Blair have to get their advisers to peel bananas for them lest the paparazzi catch them holding it themselves?

The problem with David Miliband was not that he had an awkward moment with a banana, but that he is not a good politician.

A new book, "Ed: The Milibands And The Making Of A Labour Leader", currently being serialised in the Daily Mail, quotes a Labour MP as saying that David Miliband failed to win the leadership partly because he failed to cultivate good relations with anyone in the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP).

"Aside from David Miliband, there are 257 members of the PLP... And each of those 257 has a 'David Miliband was rude to me' story," the MP said.

As well as having poor people skills David Miliband has shown himself to be lacking in judgement on numerous occasions and has also not held back from sinking to the lowest levels of gutter politics.

In his speech to the 2010 Labour Party Conference, he said, with all the artificiality he could contrive, that he was "sick" because of the Conservative Party's allies in the European Parliament.

True some of them were rather unusual to say the least, yet Labour's Euro allies included communists, anti-semites and people with terrorist connections. His remarks were the usual dishonest emotional smearing tactics which the Labour Party in particular has made its speciality

Speaking of terrorism, David Miliband himself once said he thought terrorism could be "justifiable" and "effective". This at a time when he was Foreign Secretary of a nation currently at war with people often described as terrorists.

This week also saw the leaking to the Guardian of the victory speech David Miliband would have given had he been elected Labour leader last year.

While there were a few signs that he is marginally better than his brother, for example the recognition that there might actually be a deficit and debt problem, there was plenty which revealed him to be mediocre at best.

For example he would have once again resorted to the Labour smear tactic by condemning the Tories for "a corporation tax cut that will go to banks and supermarkets".

True a corporation tax cut would help banks and supermarkets, but it would also help tens of thousands of small businesses which are struggling not only thanks to the recession but also due to the burden of taxation and regulation placed on them by Mr Miliband's government (and now Mr Cameron's).

Mr Miliband also would have said, "We are the only party saying that when [£750m] of European money is sitting in Brussels for the businesses of Cornwall, it is absolutely crazy for the Government to cut the British funding that would release that European funding."

From a purely rational point of view one might argue that paying the EU a lot of money so that it will give a little back is "absolutely crazy", when one could just as easily not give any money to the EU and spend it on Cornwall yourself. Yet the supposedly brilliant mind of David Miliband did not think of that.

The idea that David Miliband is some towering statesman is a delusion, true his brother is useless, but the Labour Party, with all its faults does have men and women of substance who could do a good job opposing David Cameron,

Ed Balls, were he not such an ogre, might have been one, but there are also people like Jon Cruddas, Alistair Darling and perhaps even Douglas Alexander and a number of others who would certainly be better than either Miliband.