WI: David Had Won?

I actually don't think David Miliband would have done anything like as well as people seem to think.

Aye. If there's one thing that's clear about David Miliband it's that he lacks what Napoleon called courage at two o'clock in the morning - this was obvious by his constant failure to challenge Brown then expecting a coronation in 2010. Ed, for all his other faults (and ye gods, there are a lot of them) at least possesses a lot more of this than David.

Miliband would have been a disaster as leader of the Opposition - Labour's William Hague (without even the decent jokes at PMQs). Like Hague he's a lot better one or two steps below the top than at it.
 
As Gregg said, it is indeed outrageous that an MP's vote is worth 600 times the vote of a party member. 10 times I can see, they're MPs after all, but 600 is excessive and almost led to the will of the people being overridden by the historically rightist PLP and the man who lost by 30,000 votes becoming leader.

On topic, I love your monster post, Gregg. Maybe a little wish-fulfilment at times but actually a fair look at David's weaknesses - Thande is right that his position as 'king across the water', demonstrated by the unsupported claims in the first reply to this thread, is largely a relic of the 'Ed is terrible' days. Now, granted that we're now in the 'Ed is okay but has far from sealed the deal' days but still.

So when do we get to the "Ed has sealed the deal but he's still a bit of a dweeb" days?:D:p
 
It's AH.com, we probably would have elected John McDonnell had he got the nominations, presuming Brian Schweitzer wasn't running.

On some issues, yeah you get that kind of blunt ideological approach, but on an issue like - the effectiveness of the two men, how strongly they would be polling - I would have suspected there would have been a stronger current of recieved wisdom at David's effectiveness, perhaps born out of cynicism at the foibles of the electorate.
 
On some issues, yeah you get that kind of blunt ideological approach, but on an issue like - the effectiveness of the two men, how strongly they would be polling - I would have suspected there would have been a stronger current of recieved wisdom at David's effectiveness, perhaps born out of cynicism at the foibles of the electorate.

I don't doubt that The Next Leader Of The Labour Party was in for a rough ride no matter what, even the left-leaning press had to slate them to fit the national mood after Brown. Let's look at them and the likely press response:

Ed Miliband OTL. Thanks to circumstances (a factor we kind of have to ignore with the ATL options below), seen as illegitimate, 'in the pocket of the unions' and backstabbing his brother somehow. These three evaporated after about 12-18 months but the general sense of unease at his speaking voice and apparent lack of manliness remained and remains the primary route of attack.

David Miliband Iraq, torture, neo-Blairite (however accurate or inaccurate this may be), Iraq, torture and an incomprehensible wonk. This last criticism has been aimed at Ed but I think Thande is right that because David is better looking (which ain't saying much, I grant you) and a bit more presentable, it would in fact be more offensive when he ends up talking like a Sam during Season 2 of the West Wing. Also expect plenty of 'he didn't have the bottle to challenge Brown' accusations, and the Libyan torture story wouldn't go away as quickly as it did IOTL.

Diane Abbot Tricky, because the two obvious -isms that the press wouldn't want to be open to being accused of. Luckily for them, Ms Abbot has a gaffe-loaded history and if she had somehow become leader of the Labour Party, speaking bluntly she would very quickly be exposed as out of her depth and apart from scoring some cheap points about not being a white guy in a suit (admittedly she definitely wouldn't have the 'they're all the same' problem that the other candidates have against Cameron), she would be regularly schooled at PMQs and probably get a lot of things embarrassingly wrong in the heat of the moment - when I saw her live she said she thought 'Britain' would win the World Cup, and in the Newsnight debate she attacked David for being Foreign Secretary during the Iraq War (something that, amusingly, Ed corrected her on). She'd write the headlines that would hang her, frankly - think Nicola Murray.

Ed Balls 'We just got rid of Brown.' The bruiser himself would not have an easy time of it. After only just holding on in Morley and Outwood and denying the press their Portillo Moment, stories about briefing, McBride and 'how he's basically Brown' would be the main line of attack. There's a reason the wags/pub bores/wankers like Old Holborn or Guido ran an ironic 'Ed Balls for Labour Leader' campaign. When you look at the criticisms he's had as Shadow Chancellor, it would be very difficult to see them not being leveled at the party as a whole and Cameron scoring win after win at PMQs by accusing him of having no credibility, no plan etc etc. This might dry up after a while, but Balls' greatest threats have always been within the party, not from outside it, and the press would relish a return to the days of 'who's briefing against who this week?'. He'd probably have the toughest time of it from the press.

Andy Burnham Despite doing well to secure the Tindale vote, everyone's favourite lower middle class Cantabrigian (but he's still got a northern accent, so he's working class, guys) would probably be smacked in the face with a royal dose of 'who the hell are you?' and 'Labour elects no-mark with the eyes of a cartoon female dog'. My own reservations about how he presents himself aside, he wouldn't be accused of being a posho and would compare well against Cameron. But the line of attack would be more on his inexperience (something which would have been the main one against Ed had he not had a brother) and somewhat flaky style of operations. Probably would have been able to pull through, and I don't know enough about his standing in the party to know if he'd maintain support (but if they didn't ditch Ed they'd've kept him) and he might have ended up being pretty accepted and gained a lot of brownie points in the wider picture by making opposition to NHS privatisation the centrepiece of the Labour platform, which could have become his 'Hackgate moment'. He might have done alright. But he was running so he could run and win in 2015 in the (then likely) event of a Labour defeat and departure of *Miliband, and his credentials at the time showed it. Would score well on being 'in-touch' though - when he was asked the same question as Ms Abbot above, he was the only candidate who actually said 'I'll of course be supporting England, but I think Spain have a real shot this year.'

So that's my take on how it would have gone down for the contenders we had.
 
Lack of manliness?

I can honestly say that I have barely, if ever, heard such an excuse as to why Ed Miliband is a bad leader. "Conveniently forgetting what he did in government" and "hypocritical in how he fights against a policy and then refuses to reverse it if Labour wins the election" are more what I've heard.
 
Lack of manliness?

I can honestly say that I have barely, if ever, heard such an excuse as to why Ed Miliband is a bad leader. "Conveniently forgetting what he did in government" and "hypocritical in how he fights against a policy and then refuses to reverse it if Labour wins the election" are more what I've heard.

Interesting, but demonstrates the different circles we inhabit. Your criticisms are from the right, mine are from those on the left who feel he needs to 'grow some balls' and 'fight the Tories', ie be more manly, to use playground terminology.
 
David Miliband does come across as arrogant and wonkish, but I think we're being a little harsh here. To his credit, he did recognise the importance of putting aside the Blairite/Brownite divisions of the past during the leadership campaign and learning from the mistakes of New Labour (look at Cruddas' endorsement and his association with Glasman). He would not lead the Labour party as an analogue of Tony Blair.

Here's the leaked Conference speech that he would have made if elected leader.

If he was elected leader, there would be more focus on fiscal credibility with opposition to the government's programme of spending cuts at the same time. He has spoken against the NHS reforms. I very much doubt that there will be a great difference in substance to Ed, David's rhetoric about the "moral economy" and the "good society" is similar to Ed's.

Also, it's likely that Alistair Darling will return to Shadow Cabinet with David as leader. If David won, then he would be tasked with an all-party commission to examine spending and during the campaign he was publicly saying that he'd like to return to frontbench politics in a year or two.

David does have flaws, but he would have made a far better leader than Ed. Like Ed he has been very open to engaging with new ideas, but is a better communicator. The problem with Ed Miliband is that, whatever the substance of his proposals, he is terrible at communicating ideas to the public. This is very damaging in a party with a pre-existing image problem.
 

Heavy

Banned
I recall reading an article published while Gordon Brown was on the way out which was concerned with his potential successors. Aside from the names which have been mentioned already in the thread, two outside chances it brought up were Jim Murphy and James Purnell (this was after his resignation, but before his departure from the Commons).

The chances of the former might have been hindered by a possible reluctance within the Labour Party to select another Scottish leader straight after Brown's exit, though I'm not sure if any such stigma would have existed at the time. As for the latter, he'd probably be perceived as too Blairite.
 
Like Ed he has been very open to engaging with new ideas, but is a better communicator.

Someone find that banana photo.

Don't agree with you on this one mate, he comes across as Mr. Wonk. Stiff, uncomfortable, wooden, a man reciting a line that he believes is the right thing to say but isn't even too sure about that. Ed is no god of discourse but that doesn't mean his brother is neccessarily better. In terms of presentation skills, I've never seen anything which suggests he has some kind of revealed Blairite knowledge about how to present things to the public. (See banana)
 
Someone find that banana photo.

Don't agree with you on this one mate, he comes across as Mr. Wonk. Stiff, uncomfortable, a man reciting a line that he believes is the right thing to say but isn't even too sure about that. Ed is no god of discourse but that doesn't mean his brother is neccessarily better.

IIRC CJF was part of the Mili-D campaign.
 
IIRC CJF was part of the Mili-D campaign.

It's interesting to me how Davidism subsconsciously trades on the Blairite inheritance - 'He's Blair's annointed heir, ergo he must be brilliant in all the same ways' (Nobody ever says this aloud, but it's the overriding assumption in everyone's argument)

Blair's annointed was once Stephen Byers, it really means nothing. Just because he shares a minor physical similarity to Saint Anthony, it does not mean he is the life and the resurrection.
 
Someone find that banana photo.

Don't agree with you on this one mate, he comes across as Mr. Wonk. Stiff, uncomfortable, wooden, a man reciting a line that he believes is the right thing to say but isn't even too sure about that. Ed is no god of discourse but that doesn't mean his brother is neccessarily better. In terms of presentation skills, I've never seen anything which suggests he has some kind of revealed Blairite knowledge about how to present things to the public. (See banana)

I don't disagree that the description you're giving is how he comes across to some people (I cringe at David from time to time), but I think there are a lot of other people who are impressed by David Miliband. I remember the focus groups that the BBC organised for the Labour leadership campaign: in almost every case the overwhelming majority of ordinary floating voters felt that David was more inspiring than Ed. He does seem to receive good audience reactions on Question Time, even when taking unpopular positions. The banana incident was one silly mistake, which hardly compares the continually shambolic presentation of Ed. I'm not claiming that he's a master communicator like Blair or Clinton, but he's a lot better than Ed.

I don't prefer David because of his similarity to Blair, and as I said before I think it's misleading to conflate two very different personalities. To be honest, the only people who keep bringing up 'Blairism' are Ed's supporters, who need a Fifth Column to blame for the party's difficulties. In reality, there's much more of a broad acceptance within the party to move forward from the past and engage with new ideas.

I would also like to confirm that I was not involved in David Miliband's leadership campaign, though I felt that he was the best candidate at the time. ;)
 

Thande

Donor
I've never really thought of the "wonk" criticism as valid. I think it betrays too much of a political bubble kind of thinking: politically aware people might judge a candidate as more or less of a wonk, but them themselves don't care and are just saying it to consider how they think the general public will react--but incorrectly, in my view. The reason being that "wonkishness" is not a distinction that the general public recognise, because from their perspective all politicians are sad nerds obsessed with unimportant minutiae, by definition. You can say somebody like Ed Miliband is 'awkward with people' or 'speaks unnaturally', but 'wonkish' or 'geeky' is not IMO a factor that would be recognised by most people. And we pretty much expect politicians to be like that anyway--this isn't America where politicians try and sound like A Regular Guy, and if any of ours ever try we tend to roll our eyes at them, politically aware class and general public both.
 
I've never really thought of the "wonk" criticism as valid.

Come on, are you saying here that everyone from BoJo to Andy Burnham to Patty Hewitt to Eric Pickles to Ann Widdecombe to anyone else you want to name is recieved the same in personality terms by the public?

To note that David has the mannerisms of a 'wonk' isn't to second guess the public, or to play into a media meme. It is to note something which is undeniably and palpably true. (Has indeed been noted as being by a D-Mil supporter, in this very thread) You can substitute 'wonk', which is the encompassing commentariat term for someone of his character and background, for a pop term like stiff, wooden, boring, whatever, the point holds. The man does not play well at public speaking. The cream of the New Labour technocrat crop almost to a (wo)man don't, it's part of the reason they got themselves into that position in the first place.

Also, "this isn't America where politicians try and sound like a regular guy" - oh lordy, where have you been for the last half century? That notion started eroding at least as far back as with the triumph of Wilson and in the last twenty years or so has well and truly become dust.
 
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