If not Ed

Following their less than sparkling out-turn from the UK local elections, there are mumblings from the ever fraternal politicians, in the Labour Party, that maybe leader, Ed Miliband, should be replaced.

The thought never seems to cross their mind, that maybe the message is wrong.

Anyhow, that got me thinking about who could replace Ed.  The job spec. would include phrases like 'must have more personality than a finger puppet', 'must have coherent policies that address the needs of the people and can be easily articulated',  'must not talk about concepts like pre-distributive', 'must not talk in a whiny schoolkid 'miss they're being nasty to me' kind of voice'.

So the candidates.

Ed's brother, David Miliband?  The nearly candidate who was defeated by Ed?  Don't think so.  This is the same man that led everyone to believe he was about to take on the deranged Gordon Brown and then chickened out and instead of bringing along an ultimatum or resignation and challenge,  to the 'Kirkcaldy kook' brought a banana, instead!

Ed Balls?  Hardly!  He, like Ed M himself, is still tied to Gordon's failed economic policies.  Indeed, he still spouts them.  He predicted doom and gloom,  if the very modest cuts initiated by the Conservatives, were enacted.  By all measures, he was spectacularly wrong.  He's an attack dog politician, that tries to hide his innate thuggery behind a very thin smile and only use his bully boy tactics, when forced to but the real Balls is never far from the surface.

Yvette Cooper?  The wife of Ed Balls.  Just the fact that she is married to Ed Balls, should be sufficient reason to discount her.  How could the Labour Party have a leader that makes such a poor choice in spouses?  Okay, so I hear you say, what about Tony Blair?  Well, yes but would Labour repeat the mistake?  Anyway, she loses on the whiny voice front as well.  She is the plain and mousy person that always did her homework on time and only associated with other kindred spirits.  As said though, poor judgement on the spouse front must exclude her.

Chuka Umunna?  The Shadow Business Secretary has certainly done everything to push his credentials.  He always dresses in sharp suits and speaks so moderately but I think that he just isn't up to it and he certainly won't have a big constituency among the leader electors.  There is something about Chuka that always suggests to me that, he is looking to move on to something bigger but mainly something that means he doesn't need or want  to mix with the hoi polloi and, heaven for fend, workers.

Andy Burnham?  I only include him as a joke.  Far too toxic given his association with the Mid Staffs scandal.  In any leadership campaign, he would automatically start with 1,300 less votes as that is the number of NHS patients that died, at that hospital, on his watch.

Harriet Harman?  She is so ludicrously 'right on'  that she just might change her name to Harriet Harperson.  No, she and fellow MP and husband, Jack Dromey, are seen as fools and hypocrites - not unusual qualifications for a politician but Harriet is just too 'nanny state'.

Jim Murphy?  This might be a possibility except that he is so outwardly 'Scottish'  He is from the Glasgow side of Scotland and so doesn't have that Edinburgh condescending approach but I am not sure Labour can risk putting a Scot in charge as the association, by voters, with Brown, might be considered to be taking too much of a chance.  Seems like a decent and grounded person though, and not so metro-elitist as almost all of the others.

So, not really much choice for Labour.  The obvious solution would be to 'cut out the middle-man' and go for Len McCluskey, the leader of the public sector union, Unite.  McCluskey controls the purse strings anyway, so why not let him be the actual mouthpiece for the party he has bought?

Says a lot for the dearth of quality, that these are the only candidates that might replace Ed

Labour must be 'credible' on cuts

So slowly the penny is dropping in the Labour Party.

Labour must have "genuine credibility" on the economy and would accept £5bn of defence cuts, shadow defence secretary Jim Murphy has said.

He told the Guardian he accepted the scrapping of Nimrod spy planes, savings in the Trident programme and cuts to civilian allowances.
Mr Murphy said it was "compulsory" that the party be "credible" on defence spending - rather than "populist".

This follows on from comments made, earlier this week, from Lord Glasman, an adviser to Ed Miliband.

Writing in the leftist New Statesman he said

Old faces from the Brown era still dominate the shadow cabinet and they seem stuck in defending Labour's record in all the wrong ways – we didn't spend too much money, we'll cut less fast and less far, but we can't tell you how."
In a caustic assessment, he says: "Labour is apparently pursuing a sectional agenda based on the idea that disaffected Liberal Democrats and public-sector employees will give Labour a majority next time round. But we have not won, and show no signs of winning, the economic argument. We have not articulated a constructive alternative capable of recognising our weaknesses in government and taking the argument to the coalition. We show no relish for reconfiguring the relationship between the state, the market and society. The world is on the turn, yet we do not seem equal to the challenge."

A health warning though.

This Blog does not advise you to hold your breath waiting for either of the two Eds - Miliband and Balls (could I call them Miliballs?) -  to come out and admit that the policy they have been pushing is now not only lacking in credibility but is being publicly said to be so by those at the heart of their own party

The Guardian reports:

Labour officials refused to comment on the article, which comes as Miliband's personal poll ratings remain low and tensions over political strategy on the economy, welfare and spending are surfacing.

On Twitter, however, the former deputy prime minister John Prescott said: "Glasman. You know sod all about politics, economic policy, Labour or solidarity. Bugger off and go 'organise' some communities!"

 I can't help but think that Glasman has to be right, if only because he upsets the erudite Prescott!