Sunny my luv,

I read that story, and the one about the best way to handle your loud teenagers being to buy a new house for them, and then I went off to lie down on the autobahn.

The Guardian now almost entirely constitutes lazy, stupid ‘journalism’ by persons whose main investigative achievement each day is to navigate to press releases spilling from fax machines without falling over the espresso maker.

I’m taking my five-year-old nephew out for lunch today. I’ll read him the above Guardian piece and ask him to spot the ruse. He’ll see it.

It does seem odd that this is reported without any reference to the fact that it might be a Brer Rabbit manoeuvre (as someone pointed out on Twitter this morning).

FFS DON’T read the Family section Kate, it’s there expressly to induce homicidal thoughts.

You’re right, Rowan. I ought to know better by now. That shit will have me back on the pills.

“Failed Labour government of the last 13 years”?

For pity’s sake. Losing the fourth election out of four hardly makes the entire 13 year period a disaster that everyone wants to distance themselves from.

If you wanted to demonstrate that Ed Miliband’s supporters wanted to return Labour to the prolonged opposition of the pre-Blair years you couldn’t do a better job than by saying things like this.

Has Sunny come out for Ed yet? (Ha, I typed ‘yet’, I totally assume he’s going to sooner or later if he hasn’t already. And I agree with him.)

Newspaper in “repeats spoonfed information” shocker.

Film at 11.

Its disappointing to see the Graun do it, but unsurprising.

So you think the Guardian has integrity when they agree with you, but has none when they don’t? Suddenly you’re taking your political gossip from the climate change-denying Spectator?

Of course, it could be a double-bluff, knowing that Guardian readers are too clever to fall for such an obvious ploy, so they’ll assume that he’s trying to pull a fast one and decide he really wants David to win. Or it could be a triple-bluff, anticipating that Guardian readers will recognise that David Cameron is smart enough to pull a double-bluff. Or it could be a quadruple-bluff… basically, we’re into Princess Bride territory.

The best thing to do is just ignore Cameron entirely. He’s hardly shown himself to be an expert electoral strategist, anyway: the fact that he may think candidate X would be more likely to beat him doesn’t mean candidate X actually would be.

Seriously, Sunny, this is a bit silly. We are to believe one anonymous Tory source but not the other. And why? Because one of them favours your guy and one doesn’t. I should think we cannot believe anything Labour’s political opponents say about what they want from the result of the leadership contest. Isn’t that the more sensible line to take?

Don’t mean to be an arse, but other than the Abbott – who isn’t going to be linked with the New Labour years. Sure, other than Balls, his link is pretty strong but the variance between 13 years and 5 is perhaps only important to them. I dunno – the recent polling figures for the co-alition are quite scary for Libs – it’s like the lefties are jumping ship.

I think what i’m trying to get at is Labour’s poll stats are phenomenally mind-bogglingly fantastic if there was genuine disgust at Brown/Blair etc etc. I guess this is an internal thing for you guys, anyway, if I were a lafty i’d have wanted the Cruddas or something but…I guess Burnham would have been alright if he was 10 years older but….hmm…

“Seriously, Sunny, this is a bit silly. We are to believe one anonymous Tory source but not the other. And why? Because one of them favours your guy and one doesn’t.”

I think it’s all best ignored, but if I had to trust one of them I’d trust the James Forsyth article too. I expect the political editor of the Spectator to be pretty well-in with the Conservative hierarchy, and his comments are as part of an article where he talks generally about strategy and says that Cameron doesn’t really care who he faces. That’s a lot more likely to be an honest account of their thinking than a few quotes conveniently leaked to a centre-left paper saying he doesn’t want X and is hoping for Y. If it’s not an attempt by the Tories to swing the leadership election, why are they giving quotes to the Guardian?

Well isn’t it convenient that Ed Miliband-backing Sunny Hundal is writing an article playing down a positive article about David Miliband.

As a reader, I’m thinking – ‘hmmmm, is there an agenda here?‘

Suddenly you’re taking your political gossip from the climate change-denying Spectator?

The Tories might be climate change denying and all the rest – but there’s one area where they excel on – and that is Tory strategy.

You’ve got the political editor of the Spectator writing in his magazine what Tory strategy will be, and talking about it in the Mail – and you’ve got one “well placed source” letting out a “secret” at a very opportune time.

I mean you could hit people over the head with a club – it would be just as obvious.

Losing the fourth election out of four hardly makes the entire 13 year period a disaster that everyone wants to distance themselves from.

Ok I admit that was phrased badly. New Labour did get a lot of things right, and I’m not advocating a return to the 1970s.

I was referring specifically to the falling vote share of the Labour party from 2000 to 2010… where they lost a massive part of the electorate through their triangulation and ‘command-and-control’ way of doing things.

I was referring specifically to the falling vote share of the Labour party from 2000 to 2010… where they lost a massive part of the electorate through their triangulation and ‘command-and-control’ way of doing things.

Indeed, something they did, they did wrong. How much was economic, how much social, how much foreign policy is diffiuclt to evaluate, but votes they lost by the bucket load.

With regard to the votes lost, tom freeman and I have been looking at the raw figures. They certainly look like failure.

“I was referring specifically to the falling vote share of the Labour party from 2000 to 2010… where they lost a massive part of the electorate through their triangulation and ‘command-and-control’ way of doing things.”

You can claim that’s how votes were lost, and I’m sure this might be true of the tiny part of the electorate that read the Guardian, but that isn’t how Labour lost most votes. Brown was not as popular with the public as Blair had been; the recession had caused people to lose confidence in Labour’s economic competence; the government was seen as soft on immigration, and public opinion of the government had shifted to Labour’s disadvantage on issues like crime and education since Blair was leader.

None of this suggests 13 years of failure, or even a problem of party organisation dating back to 2000.

man – this Blair hatred needs to stop.

Yes labour lost votes but won three elections and guess what cameron and osborne and hilton believed that blair is unbeatable and he most likely would have won the 4th election as well. He never lost an election as a leader.

Stop trashing the record – New labour achieved a lot of things. And why should labour supporters vote for a candidate who disowned the manifesto he wrote, according to alan johnson never said a word about civil liberties when in cabinet, but suddenly says he is the champion for it. The man who was in treasury as an economic adviser, close to gordon brown, in the cabinet and suddenly now finds the living wage campaign.

No one is more discredited for the voters outside the “labour flock” than the Brown crew – and ed miliband was a key player of that cabal. And floating voters voted for labour because of tony blair not for gb, not for ed balls etc etc.

Oh now ed miliband is againt the iraq war – and we all know that he would have voted exactly the way his boss wanted him to ie gb – and now claiming the moral high ground.

The tribalistic, idiotic approach of labour supporters – attacking blair – like dianne abbot has also cost labour votes – the continuous challenge of the elected labour leader’s authority and the most successful labour politician ever within the party did cost labour votes. And Ed Miliband was part of that cabal – and he has no appeal to voters outside the guardian reading (like alan johnson said about ed miliband’s civil liberties thing) – and alan johnson is workign class guys. And he is no neo liberal new labour creep (like so many of you like to say it).

ASBOs weren’t wrong and neither was cctvs and New labour first started bringing the voluntary sector into public service delivery and decentralising power to local authorities – in fact it happened when david miliband was local government minister -

Better schools for future happened when david miliband was schools minister

Climate change targets were introduced when David Miliband was Defra secretary

Policies to bring in more investment in NHS was driven by No 10 – and gordon brown castigated blair for ruining his first budget when the then PM went on Frost to say that NHS investment would match mainland europe – David Miliband was Head of Policy for the Prime Minister’s Office then.

So please David Miliband is far more qualified – far more nuanced and is a threat to the Tories but you lot are never going to accept it – just like you are never going to accept that Tony Blair is the most successful labour politician ever and you had 13 years of power because of that bloke. And David Miliband was very much part of that success –

While Ed Miliband and the Treasury cabal was trying to destabilise their own party’s government not because of any ideals but because of personal ambitions

At least Balls has real balls and is a good legislation mover, a thoroughly tough political player and ten times less hypocritical than ed miliband.

But people who flock here – don’t like logic but are too concerned about backslapping and engaging in groupthink and trashing New Labour’s record. Well done….with supporters like this – do we really deserve to win back the government.

So, yeah he might be the new messiah to the so called guardian reading latte drinking so called liberals but outside that sphere it would be a catastrophe for labour to elect ed miliband the hypocrite to be elected labour leader.

finally the photograph would be an asset rather than a liability in a general election – after 8 years since blair left office when the next election happens – blair’s record would look amazing -

So attack me – and get into your own groupthink – and use your second preference to kill the chance of having a labour victory in 2015.

That is a cracking good photograph. It looks like something that was staged for _The Thick of It_. Can anyone guide me to the background story about how/why the photo was taken?

It is indisputably the case that the Tories “fear” David Miliband the most of all of the candidates in the election. The only disagreement you’ll get from any Tory is over the word “fear”. The fact that they are running attack lines about him now merely serves to highlight that concern. There’s certainly no way they would rather have David than Ed.

This is rather like the stuff from a few weeks back when you were alleging that the Tories were running scared of Balls; now you think they’re running scared of Miliband E. The truth is that of the two Milibands, the election of Ed would be much, much the better outcome for the Tories.

Matthew Taylor wrote an interesting blog recently – people who continually trash Blair and new labour should read this:

http://www.matthewtaylorsblog.com/category/politics/

that was blair’s approach and you know what it worked and guess what the biggest success of blair – that a tory prime minister while campaigning or the first doorstep speech as PM talked about social justice -

Something rather unthinkable in 1997. So wake up people and smell the coffee.

Oh and before I go – Cameron modeled himself after blair and he lives in no. 10.

Gordon brown, and his cabal wanted to be NOT Blair – and what happened? Without blair, they imploded with leaks against douglas alexander, alistair darling, even balls, david miliband but nothing against ed miliband.

Could he be the anonymous source? I hate trashing any labour politician but I am seriously tired of swift boat tactics against david miliband and the whinging tone from ed miliband campaign. And I have had enough of blair bashing – no wonder people leave the party and voted for other parties.

I am thinking about poisonous pasts.

On a thread elsewhere, it was observed that Hague, Duncan Smith and Howard were unable to cast off their association with Thatcherism. That association made them unelectable. Cameron blabbed once or twice about his admiration for Thatcher but recanted and qualified his statements. His past may come back to bite him when government cuts are imposed, but I hope for the sake of all of us that he understands that Thatcherism was illogical and unrepeatable.

The man on the Clapham omnibus recalls the government period 1997-2010 as “New Labour”. And in 2010, he stopped voting for NL. There is greater antagonism towards TB owing to the Iraq War than towards GB, but good and bad events are “New Labour” history. The average voter regarded the internal war surrounding the change of leadership as one about personality/ambition rather than ideology. TB + GB = NL.

Thus the Guardian story wagging a finger at one of the Miliband brothers is misdirected. The problem for Labour is that they do not have a serious candidate for leadership who is not contaminated by the past. Milibands are poisonous to varying degrees and Balls is toxic.

It took the Conservatives years to reinvent their brand. Even now, John Redwood resides in a special intellectual cupboard away from normal Tories.

As a Libdem troll I honestly dont know which Milliband would be better or worse, not that I would tell you if I did. In terms of ammunition against him the Times (?) front page on Ed M was pretty good – Union Boss threatens to cut off funds if Party doesnt elect Ed.

oldandrew – you say Labour lost most votes because of Brown, the recession, and a shift in public opinion post-Blair. But Labour lost more votes between 2001 and 2005 than they did between 2005 and 2010.

It’s definitely an entertaining picture, but I don’t think ‘had a walk-on part in Labour’s 1997 win’ is quite up there with ‘had a walk-on part in Black Wednesday’.

Shamit – yes, Blair helped win Labour 13 years in power (although I and many other Labour members believe a lot of those years were wasted opportunities, and that’s Blair’s fault just as much as the wins are). But things have moved on. Thatcher was extremely successful for the Tories – right up until she wasn’t. And then she was a liability. We have to move out of the shadow of Blair just as the Tories had to move out of the shadow of Thatcher.

“oldandrew – you say Labour lost most votes because of Brown, the recession, and a shift in public opinion post-Blair. But Labour lost more votes between 2001 and 2005 than they did between 2005 and 2010.”

I’m not being pedantic here, but Sunny did refer to Labour’s falling vote *share*. Labour’s share of the vote went down more between 2005 and 2010 than between 2001 and 2005.

“I’m not being pedantic here, but Sunny did refer to Labour’s falling vote *share*. Labour’s share of the vote went down more between 2005 and 2010 than between 2001 and 2005.”

True. But it went down more 1997-2005 than 2005-2010. And it’s not like Blair left office with sky-high approval ratings. I’m not saying Brown doesn’t share the blame, of course he does, but any idea that we’d have won if we’d just kept steady on the Blairite path is absurd.

“The man on the Clapham omnibus recalls the government period 1997-2010 as “New Labour”.”

I don’t think this is the case. There’s no getting away from the fact that Cameron was promoting himself as “the heir to Blair” and Brown was continually being portrayed in the media as being Blair’s nemesis. People did notice a difference. It no longer felt like the New Labour era, and certainly references to “New Labour” by people in the government were the exception not the rule.

Maybe I’m over-stating my case. Maybe the lefties that fled over Iraq were significant, at least in terms of marking the end of the electoral coalition that had existed for the previous 9 years, but what happened after 2005 is also very important. This revisionist version of history that says Labour lost in 2010 because of New Labour, Blair and Iraq is, on the face of it, unlikely and, as the basis for Labour’s future electoral strategy, likely to be disastrous.

By the way, my earlier list of what was important between 2005 and 2010 should have mentioned MPs’ expenses.

You know what else is a classic political manoeuvre? Getting free play for your own propaganda by having other people repeat it for you, ostensibly as part of some other story such as who you really ‘fear’. Espcially clever if it’s your political opponents, and if they get so caught up in the argument that they amplify your own spin to new levels.

“I’m not saying Brown doesn’t share the blame, of course he does, but any idea that we’d have won if we’d just kept steady on the Blairite path is absurd.”

Is anyone saying that? Parties have to evolve. The problem is the ridiculous idea that losing in 2010 makes the entire New Labour era (and Blair in particular) some kind of toxic blemish which must be disowned by moving to the left. This proposed move to the left is not even a selective move on those issues where the public lean to the left, or where New Labour seemed particularly out of touch with public opinion; it is a wholesale return to the pre-1994 status quo.

All Sunny is doing is pumping Labour. Do you think he’ll speak negatively towards Miliband? Not a chance.

So labour would have to now elect ed miliband – otherwise unions would pull out funding? Unions are blackmailing the party to elect their candidate.

Tories must be loving this. The entire labour party should call this bluff – - so are the union bosses thinking about supporting the tories if labour elects David Miliband or Ed Balls or are they going to go to the party which holds the office of Chief Secretary To The Treasury.

Ed Miliband is a decent guy and is an asset to the party – I do not think his campaign or he personally were aware of this or authorised this in anyway. I disagree with him about Blair and I disagree with him on his approach to getting labour back to power. But this damages labour party as a whole and I don’t think Ed Miliband would have any part in this.

This is a gift to the Tories:

“Once Blair left – reform left

Once Gordon left – unions became the bosses again.

Welcome back 1970′s. Britain should go forwards not backwards”

If I could write this in a couple of minute imagine what Hilton & Co would do. And anyone underestimating their communications talent is living in a fool’s paradise. Labour started total place and devolution and engaging with citizens but Cameron somehow captures the Big Society message.

Thank you Paul Kenny – with friends like this who needs enemies.

You lost votes because you lost the support of your new core. Mr Blairs “Hard working families” started to feel that they were working hard and getting nothing back for it, except hassle, intrusion, endless nagging and regulation.

I voted nu lab in 97 and 01. No vote in 05, and voted against in 2010

The two things that crystallised the end of my support were

Some nu labour woman whose name I forget saying on Radio 4 words to the effect that she considered it legitimate for the government to interfere in family life

The smoking ban

Most people vote based on their immediate life experience, and that means domestic economic and social policies, not obscure politicised debates about something they have no immediate interest in like the EU and the HRA. The left have lost sight of this simple fact.

Shamit – it’s sad that you’re still fighting the wars of 2007 and before. Blair has gone. The party went down to its second worst defeat EVER.

If you want to change that then you must acknowledge the party has to change. Stop repeating that mantra “stop trashing the record” – if you want a repeat of 2010 next time.

@30 oldandrew: “There’s no getting away from the fact that Cameron was promoting himself as “the heir to Blair” and Brown was continually being portrayed in the media as being Blair’s nemesis.”

That is the political nerd perspective rather than that of the geezer on the bus.

New Labour was always a bossy, managerialist ideology. Voters initially welcomed NL and tolerated NL for a long time owing to the positive things (minimum wage, family tax credits).

It all unravelled when it became clear that NL hadn’t kept an eye on MP’s expenses or on the banking system or on the number of people entering/leaving the UK. If you are going to run a bossy, managerialist system, those are the sorts of things you have to appear to control. Without public perception of control, an ideology such as NL loses electoral steam. Voters stop backing the party that bosses them around when it becomes clear that it can’t organise a street party. Admittedly, NL got away with the last one partially when creating the Millennium Dome.

Cameron did model himself on TB, but he tried to define himself as the bloke who would do things with you rather than for you. Cameron tried to capture the positive Blair attributes. I don’t think that the electorate are 100% convinced by this and expect that Flashman Cameron will eventually reveal himself on stage.

Meanwhile, Labour has to reinvent itself around leadership candidates who are tattooed with evidence of policy failure and trust failure. This is bad all round; bad for Labour and bad for the LibDems in government who are going to need some serious intellectual support shortly.

37,

I’m curious now. How come your views, which seem to me to be straight out of the pages of the Guardian, are the perspective of the “geezer on the bus”? It strains credibility to breaking point to suggest that political nerds care about personalities while the less committed members of the public care about ideological narratives.

Completely agree, I thought exactly the same when I read it. I think when all these cuts start to bite they might do well having a left leaning leader who rigorously opposes such cuts and I think Ed’s that man

check out my satirical political / current affairs blog at:

http://www.two-musketeers.blogspot.com

thanks

I find it interesting and sadly not unexpected that everyone here is talking about whether or not a (let’s face it, slight) move to the left would work as an electoral strategy. But there is something else pertinent, which is: what direction do we want the country to go in? After all, it would surely be easier to win elections by being extremely right wing, but what would be the point? Our opponents are doing that very well thanks.

Ed Miliband, of the candidates in contention, is advocating openly socially democratic positions. If that’s the way we want the country to go, then let’s vote for him. The idea that such a slick, young, new labour operator is some kind of Militant throwback ready to impose Soviets throughout the country is pretty hilarious anyway.

Let’s not the make the Blair mistake, and assume yet again that David really advocates similar social democratic positions, despite ostensibly doing nothing of the sort. If it looks like a duck, talks like a duck, and is funded like a duck, then it probably is a duck. In which case, let’s not get led to the right again, particularly by making unwarranted assumptions that the right is the only electable position. Or otherwise, let’s just give up and elect a Cameron of our own.

@40 Jumbo

After all, it would surely be easier to win elections by being extremely right wing [...]

Um, the BNP getting wiped out at the recent local elections would seem to contradict this defeatism. As would the Cons not getting an outright majority.

That guy on the left hand side of your Miliband/Campbell/Blair photo looks amazingly like Ollie Reeder (Chris Addison’s character from “The Thick Of It”)!