Why were the Blairites so SURE Labour would have done better in '15 with David Miliband as leader?

[Ken Burch]

They kept implying it all through Ed Miliband's period as leader(and they nursed the "stabbed in the back" meme against Ed even during the 2015 campaign.

As I understand it, David and Ed's policy ideas were almost identical(Ed's policies were still essentially Blairite), and it's hard to imagine that, as brothers, their personalities and presence as speakers could have been all that different.

What is it that they think the OTHER Miliband had to offer that was so bloody magical? They David-yearning may have undermined Ed Miliband's leadership enough to flip the election by itself.

What did Ed ever do to them?

[LeftishBrit]

1. I think David MIGHT have been a smoother, more competent campaigner; and have appeared more

experienced, etc.

I like Ed, but he was a singularly poor campaigner, especially at the end.

But who knows? The same right-wing press that delighted in tearing down Ed Miliband and comparing him unfavourably to his brother, would have doubtless also have found ways to attack David.

The 'stabbed in the back' meme really angered me. Unless there was a previous agreement not to stand against David, that Ed then went back on (no evidence of that); or unless he used private family knowledge against David (which he clearly didn't); then he did not 'stab David in the back' any more than David stabbed Ed in the back: they stood against one another.

[Ken Burch]

2. I agree about Ed's dismal campaigning skills.

You's have thought a guy who'd been an MP for years would have learned how to ask people for votes. It was that, rather than any alleged "leftism" (a "mansion tax" doesn't make you Salvador Allende) that cost Labour the election.

Well, that and Ed Balls doing all he could to destroy Ed's chances by going up and down the UK saying there would still be cuts even if Labour won (an insistence that probably convinced millions of potential Labour voters that it was pointless to turn up at the polls. Served Balls right that he lost his own seat.

And what really infuriated me was that David never once, to my knowledge, did the decent thing and said "Ed didn't stab me in the back. He beat me fair and square according to the rule in force at the time and he has my full support as leader". If there was any brotherly stabbing, it was on David's part.

[T_i_B]

3. Ed Miliband only became an MP in 2005.

One reason why he struggled in my opinion is that he didn't have enough experience as an MP.

As to your original argument, I don't see many Blairites pining for David Miliband. However, there are a few who (wrongly in my opinion) consider Blair resigning in 2007 as the beginning of Labour's decline. If anything, it's Blair who they're really pining for.

[Ken Burch]

4. You'd think they'd remember that Labour was down by four million votes in 2005(his last campaign)

from where it had been in '97.

And the truth is, Labour could have won the '97 election with Benny Hill as leader-and that's allowing for the fact that he'd been dead for five years by then.

[T_i_B]

5. Labour still won a decent sized majority in 2005

Granted, they lost a lot of seats from the previous 2 landslides. But it wasn't enough to make these people wake up.

A lot of the losses in 2005 seemed to be in the South East of England and I think that a few people in Labour took the wrong lessons from that. Thinking that more top down right wingery was the way forward.

[Ken Burch]

6. They didn't seem to notice that, in 2005, Labour lost a lot of seats and votes to the LibDems

especially in the South East(and did so at a time when they were arguably to the left of Labour on some major issues-such as the Iraq War. Ironically, this year, the LibDems were sharply to the right of where the were in 2005 and lost a lot of seats to the Tories. Go figure, as we say in the States).

[LeftishBrit]

10. I think you are rather too hard on Ed Balls

He is more conservative on economic issues than I care for; but he and Miliband were singing out of a similar hymn-sheet on this. Balls was not 'destroying Ed's chances'. He was one of the people whom the Tories HATED, and were obsessed with getting him out of Parliament. Indeed they nearly succeeded in doing so in 2010. He did not have a safe seat, which is a strange thing in itself: the Labour Party should have ensured that its key figures all had seats with majorities bigger than around 1000 votes. I was devastated when he lost his seat, partly because of the extreme triumphalism of the Tories about it.

Those who destroyed Ed's chances were (1) Ed himself, through very inept campaigning, and in particular his panicking over the Scottish situation and refusing in advance to make any deals with the SNP (he should have said that he could not make any decisions about possible coalitions until the election); (2) the RW media; and (3) Blair.

I agree that David was not any more loyal to his brother than the other way round; and more crucially, not loyal to his party. But it is typical; the Labour Party's usual response to any political defeat or threat thereof is to fight one another.

What irritates me the most is the constant media and Tory allegations that the economic mess was caused by 'Labour overspending'. It was a global problem, not a specifically British one!

[Jeneral2885]

7. Why you so sure that getting out of NATO

is lovely?

[Ken Burch]

8. For myself, it's because NATO is an outdated institution.

It's not an alliance of equals, but rather a power relation in which the U.S. basically tells everyone in Europe that's part of it what they have to accept and support.

The Cold War is over, and "emergency"-based structures like NATO are no longer really needed-the days when "the Russian bear" was a threat to take over Europe and the world are over.

If some sort of European alliance is needed, it should be reconfigured to give the non-American members of NATO a real say in the decisions the alliance makes...so that it isn't just the U.S. saying "jump" and England, France, Germany and the rest saying "how high"?

Why did you ask that question here, when it really doesn't relate to the OP? Ed Miliband wasn't suggesting leaving NATO.

[T_i_B]

9. Why haven't you read the OP before replying?

[LeftishBrit]

11. Neither Miliband proposed getting out of NATO; so I don't quite see the relevance of your question