Ed Miliband tells Nick Clegg to ‘lie low’ on AV
Ed Miliband’s used his press conference this morning to tell Nick Clegg to “lie low” in the AV referendum campaign because he’s a turn-off to voters. Is that slightly dodgy, hiding a party leader from the voters during a national campaign? Or just sensible politics?
Ed Miliband was happy to appear with Charles Kennedy at a “Yes to AV” rally scheduled for tomorrow but not with Nick Clegg so the event collapsed and Ed M will speak at a Labour event on Wednesday instead. Ed M neatly side-stepped a question asking whether there were other Lib Dem ministers he would be happy to campaign with saying he wasn’t even sure he knew all their names.
Ed Balls said it was a “touchy” subject who shares a platform with who. Ed M said he hadn’t done a “head count” yet on how many of his Shadow Cabinet would be lining up behind him in the Yes to AV campaign. As for the all-party Yes to AV campaign, they seem to have taken the same view as Ed M that Nick Clegg should be, as far as possible, hidden from view in the campaign.
On cuts, Ed M denied there was a credibility gap for the party even though it says no to the VAT rise but doesn’t say where it would find the money itself. That, Ed M says, is because there’s a £40bn difference between the Coalition deficit reduction plan and Labour’s … But the VAT rise is filling coffers this year and the gap between Labour’s plan and the Coalition’s for this year is only £2bn.
On Prince Andrew, by the way, Ed M said his experience was that he “did a good job for Britain” and he is “happy” for him to continue.
There are 5 comments on this post
CAn’t think there are many lib dem councillors who will be crying out for Nick Clegg to go on the campaign trail with them.
It’s hard to think of a more rapid – and more deserved – fall from grace.
That line is going to come back to haunt Ed M: ‘a turn-off for voters’.
Ed is to Labour what IDS was to the Tories. A stop-gap, lacking in charisma, who cannot unite the nation and who doesn’t have a prayer of taking his party to a general election victory.
Gary,
Clearly, the boy Ed is a much quicker learner in cynical politics than many anticipated, including me.
The Cleggies have played all their coalition cards – and they weren’t many – and have managed to look like a gang of opportunist, hypocritical barrow boys worse than anyone else. No wonder Sheffield is trying to disown the Chief Cleggy himself.
AV? Long term, it won’t matter a row of beans, except for possible elimination of the LiDs. Eventually they will disappear for the same reason the “Social Democrats” – remember them? – vaporised. It is only a matter of time before they melt into the Tories.
The issue will stay the same. Whatever the ebbs and flows of the political tide it will always be Socialism V Capitalism. The LiDs are merely flotsam and jetsam on the tide.
Although we may agree that AV could see the extinguishing of the Lib-Dems, don’t think that will simply re-inforce the two-party system.
There’s every possibility that, in the place of the Lib-Dems, we will see a substantial growth in other parties, particularly right-of-centre ones, whose key messages have been successfully suppressed so far by the Big Three acting in concert.
With some cunning seat-selection and a bit of quiet co-operation, the likes of UKIP, BNP, English Democrats and others could start to garner very high scores under AV, which would then give the Big Boys cause for thought.
Just imagine a new, single-issue ‘Bring Back Hanging’ candidate – if we believe opinion polls, that could sweep up so many second-preference votes (after loyalty-dues paid by voting for their normal party first) that there could be some shock results, then lots of hasty policy re-writes to follow.
Those who wish for AV may be advised to be careful what they wish for.
I do wish Millibland would put a sock in it. I’ve yet to hear him say anything remotely reasonable about anything. He’s just so out of touch with the real world. Labour have picked the wrong man to lead them.
Again…