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DAVID MILIBAND CRITICISED his brother Ed’s British election campaign today, while ruling himself out as a candidate to take over as Labour leader after a failed bid that caused a sibling rift.
Ed Miliband, who suffered a deep defeat at the polls last week, beat his brother David for the leadership of the centre-left party in 2010.
“This election was devastating for the Labour Party and for every Labour supporter,” David Miliband said an interview with the BBC from New York.
Seen as the more centrist of the two brothers, David left British politics to lead a charity in New York after his younger brother unexpectedly beat him in the leadership race.
Ed has said the relationship is “healing”.
But the subject was brought up during the campaign by the Conservatives, who accused Ed of planning “stab the United Kingdom in the back” like he did to his brother.
David said there was “no point” in speculating whether the party made the wrong choice, after Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservatives won a surprise majority in the House of Commons and Labour suffered its worst defeat in years last week.
Labour is now heading for a new leadership contest amid soul-searching over why the election went so wrong.
Several candidates have indicated they may run, with the race shaping up to be a fight between the left-wing and centrist factions of the party.
David, once a protege of the business-friendly former Labour prime minister Tony Blair, said his brother had allowed himself to be “portrayed as moving backwards”, echoing criticisms the campaign had been too left-wing.
“I’m clearly not a candidate in this leadership election,” David said.
“What I passionately hope for is that friends and colleagues that are in the UK now will take up the mantle of a dynamic, progressive politics that’s able to speak to millions.”
David called for “an aspirational and inclusive politics”, a reference to criticism of Ed for appealing too much to a core working-class vote instead of trying to woo the middle classes.
Yet he did not rule out potentially making a return to British politics in the future, saying his passion for Labour was undiminished.
“I don’t know what the future holds,” David said.
“What I think is vital is that there is absolutely no delusion about what happened, why it happened, and the scale of the challenge that exists.”
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The wrong brother was elected in the first place!
True. That “bacon sandwich” had more charisma than Ed Miliband could ever aspire to have.
I know damp cloths who have more charisma :D
I think a lot of people were surprised that Ed won the leadership back in 2010. David was the natural choice. Gravitas, personal, vision. Ed ran a great campaign and locked up the union side of labour. It was a shock but he struggled from the start connecting with voters and selling the message.
It seems Labour are due a few barren years like the Tories who had Ian Duncan Smith and William Hague before finally settling in an untried and very shaky David Cameron.
My bet is David will be back to lead Labour after the next leader fails.
I was living in London for the last labour leadership election.. and the only reason David lost was because of in-politics in labour. So labour UK lost this election the day they voted for Ed . Apparently david had too many sensible ideas! When I seen the result I was shocked! I would have voted David all day long… and not just because of the name.
Most of those who work in politics who know me think I’m naive in always trying to get people to make decisions on policy even though I’m aware (and I’d be really bad at my job if I were not) that people vote based on their irrational emotional subconscious and not their brain most of the time. They find it esp odd coming from someone in marketing (they think were all soulless sociopaths who go home to jack off over our piles of money, stopping on the way home to punch homeless people and steal Christmas) So I should not be surprised that people think a mere change of brother would have changed the result…but I find it so depressing.
It also shows you just what a farce this whole Labour think in project about ideology really is, the idea that they lost cos their message was too left.
Hats off to the conservatives from a purely professional, strategic POV though. They managed to convince millions of working class (and middle class in many cases) people into voting against their economic interests due to a vague fear of a Labour-SNP govt which, policy wise, when you take out the Scottish question, they’d probably have liked far better. Not only did they manage that though, but they’ve forced their opponents into making the classic mistake of politics: trying to fight the battle on your opponents narrative (talking about the deficit etc when that’s not territory they really win on), which it looks like now they will do. Remember though, 5 years is an eternity in politics…remember 1992 v 1997 in the UK
I wouldnt say hats off to the conservatives, they managed to convince…
I would probably say the marketing/PR for labour was not so strong, or nowhere near as strong as polls would have suggested.
If you’re in marketing as a profession, rule 1..know your market.
Rule 2; find out what went wrong and remarket.
Just saying…
Surely it should be about something more substantiant than pr and marketing. This is what is wrong with politics in the first place!
@Ryan. Are you saying that choosing David would have to the same result? I respectfully disagree. David would have had a different direction. There’s no knowing how this would have played out over the 5 years of parliament. Also the public were far more enamoured with David – an area Ed fatally struggled with.
Different message, different strategy, different leader = different result.
Sunday dinner must be entertaining at the Miliband’s.
One of them would have a long journey home if they were having Sunday dinner together ;-)
Erm…is the whole world looking at the same video as me? What was ”harsh” , ”stinging” and ”brutal ” about saying they moved away from the values that made them a success in the past? How is that ”stinging”?
The media seems to be reporting what they would LIKE him to have said rather than what he ACTUALLY said, it was the same with his tweet the other day, they said he was “hinting” at a leadership return and “teasing” when he was doing no such thing the language was quite clear. Anytime you see something like this, or a report that concludes xyz..always check the original source and you’ll see half the time the media headline and the thing they are reporting on bear no relationship to each other whatsoever.
Ryan, excellent comments.
“Thiiiings can only get better!”
*Sobs in a corner*
Wrong policies, wrong leader & crazy plans……
Why is he called “ed balls” i cant fund an answer anywhere
Because he’s called Ed milliband. Ed balls is a totally different balls up altogether. ;)
Use your imagination.
Labour were hobbled the moment they chose the wrong milliband. Moving to the left was never going to work. Simply put, not enough people want socialism.
*find
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