David Miliband Finally Exits

David Miliband may well be looking at his last headlines tomorrow, as he shuffles off his political coil and finally exits the front-line political scene he has occupied for so relatively short a time. He has managed to upstage his leadership winning brother for much of this week, but now he's accepted the logic of his position - and implicitly acknowledged the bitterness of his defeat - and made the first steps away from politics. If he lasts as an MP to the next election I'll be surprised. If his reputation lasts any longer I'll be even more surprised.

The meteoric rise and rapid fall of David Miliband have been an instructive tale on the conduct of modern politics. He was one of that increasing group of advisers who were making their name before they even hit parliament. Ushered into a safe seat, David didn't have to waste much time on the backbenches before oozing smoothly into the cabinet, where he was almost instantaneously spoken of as the obvious Blairite successor. His three years as Foreign Secretary represent the high point of his political climb, and although he served competently, and even struck up an odd chemistry with Hillary Clinton, it isn't immediately obvious what lasting achievement he obtained while in that exalted position. To be fair, it isn't immediately obvious what lasting impression he has made at all in politics. Such has been the rapidity of his career it seems to have left little time for anything as solid as a concrete monument. He didn't even manage to decide whether to challenge for the leadership of his party in more trying times, when he might actually have managed to be its saviour - but then, so wet behind the ears was he as a politician that he was still a novice in the hard arts of political activity.

Enoch Powell argued - actually, I think he stated, brooking no argument - that all political careers end in failure. He was thinking of careers that had many years of hard work and graft behind them, making their ultimate failure all the more tragic. The failure of a career that has barely spanned a decade seems so much more ephemeral, and barely registers on the political richter scale. This, perhaps, is the true representation of the new career politics that Philip Cowley was talking about; indeterminate flashes across a darkening sky that seems bereft of the bright lights of more lasting stars. David Miliband departs as if he is some triumphant, weary general who has finally hung up his sword. Actually, he barely unsheathed it, and now disappears not so much into the dustbin of history, as to be consumed by its vacuum.

The Press and Miliband

The line being taken by Critics of Miliband includes, of course, the fact that he was only elected by dint of union support, and was clearly not the first choice of members or MPs. One thing calculated to quickly bring the Labour membership into line behind him will be the front pages of today's newspapers. With two exceptions, they subject Ed M. to a critical firestorm - just the sort of thing to persuade ordinary Labourites to swing in behind their new leader.

The Miliband Dilemma

They really don't know what to make of him. The pundits, that is. So much so that Blairite John Rentoul in the Independent on Sunday basically seems to want to write Cameron's PMQ attack lines for him, while the conservative James Forsyth on the Spectator blog explains why Ed is a far more formidable figure than the Conservatives are allowing.

More on Miliband

Quite a bit is being made of the role that Derek Simpson's Unite union played in Ed Miliband's victory. Certainly the union did all it could to swing its members votes for Ed, but not all is what it seems! One very Conservative friend of mine happens to have joined Unite in the last year or so to protect his position, and used his opportunity as a union member and devoted Conservative to vote for the man he thinks will keep the Tories in power. Chalk up another one to Ed M.

Cameron, Clegg, Miliband - The Triumph of the Political Professionals

Ed Miliband’s victory as Labour leader tells us virtually nothing about the possible direction of the Labour Party, as witness the acres of disparate punditry occupying today’s press. Is he ‘Red Ed’, or is he the pragmatist leader of a new generation? Is he Iain Duncan Smith or Tony Blair made anew? Other than the fact that the unions appear to have voted for him in order to reject his more obviously Blairite brother – one in the eye for a historically failing Blair there – what, really, does Ed Miliband stand for? We don’t really know. We don’t really know because he has been in front line politics for such a short length of time, and it is this fact as much as anything else that may be the most telling aspect of Ed Miliband’s election, as the renowned political scientist Philip Cowley comments today.

Read more here.

"Miliband of Brothers"

The night before one of them becomes the Labour Party leader, More 4’s tongue in cheek docu-drama, “Miliband of Brothers” didn’t do either of them any favours, but was an entertaining and illuminating watch. Yes, they were both portrayed as the nerdy middle-class sons of a comfortably off, radical professor who quailed when faced with real rebellion. Yes, it was entertaining to watch the clashes between their well-meaning, utterly divorced socialism and the real world of conflict (there’s not a lot of conflict going on in the left-wing parlours of North London and the glorious isolation of Oxford colleges after all). In terms of character, I suspect the programme makers rather favoured Ed Miliband over his even nerdier brother, giving him a more entertainingly subversive personality with a slightly stronger relationship to planet Earth than that enjoyed by his brother. David’s inability to party or act like “a normal teenager” was played up for a bit of cheap humour, but partying is over-rated and what is a “normal teenager” anyway? Heaven help us if such a boringly homogenous species ever does emerge.

We were reminded of the real political dramas of the polarised 80s, when Margaret Thatcher radicalised the nation and Scargill, Draper, Heffer, Benn and co split the Labour Party and made it ungovernable, waging a continuous war with leader Neil Kinnock. Then along came Blair, and the Milibands’ firm commitment to his final abandonment of anything even approaching socialism. I had forgotten the genuinely fantastic sight of Kinnock, Mandelson and Prescott lip-synching along to “Things Can Only Get Better”. I hadn’t forgotten, because Andrew Rawnsley, one of the programme’s contributors, has always been around to remind us, that the Labour leadership was an utterly poisonous concoction between Blair and Brown. But out of this has arisen the Miliband v Miliband fight for leadership, and tomorrow one of these two slightly bizarre characters will be entrusted with trying to return Labour to power after a rather shorter interval in opposition than the last one. “Miliband of Brothers” may have just served to remind us how strange most of our political leaders are, whether they went to Haverstock comp or Eton. Or, possibly, one day – Sutton Grammar?!

Vince's Masterly Hatchet Job

When Nick Clegg was merely an inexperienced neophyte who had rather surprisingly been elected to the leadership of a third party few people really cared about, he was very often in the shadow of a far greater, altogether more majestic figure. Vince Cable had shown, during his temporary leadership of the Lib Dems, that age didn't have to be a bar to effective leadership. He had combined well aimed comedy - his jibe about Gordon Brown transforming from Stalin to Mr. Bean was one of the most wounding to be aimed at the former PM - with a reputation as the country's greatest political seer. Never mind Cardinal Newman, it was Vince that everyone thought should be sainted.

Even as the election campaign began, the Lib Dems seemed to think that St. Vince, as he was commonly becoming known, should always be seen at Mr. Clegg's side in order to give the younger man more gravitas. Well the rest is, as everyone rather unoriginally says, history. Nick Clegg delivered a passable performance in his first television debate, in contrast to flawed performances from both of the other leaders, and became a political figure in his own right. Not only was there no more need for Vince, but the older man was quietly consigned to the sidelines while Cleggmania took effect. Vince only re-emerged as a rather reluctant member of Nick Clegg's readily agreed coalition with Mr. Cameron. His famous impression of a dying duck in a thunderstorm became a regular feature on political shows. But Vince Cable didn't become one of the Lib Dems' biggest figures by accident - although in that party, to be fair, such a thing is not improbable. No, Dr. Vince Cable is as capable of a political hatchet job as the next man, and that is what he has managed to deliver today.

Cable's hard nosed political acumen was clearly seen in the releasing of incendiary excerpts from his 'anti-business' speech as Business Secretary; then his careful placing of such rhetoric in a slightly less inflamed final speech whilst still enthusing the dying Lib Dem conference crowd, was a masterpiece of political spin (see Paul Waugh's take on it here). And the hatchet job he has delivered is certainly not aimed at British business, but at the man whose views he has been busy contradicting all week - Nick Clegg. Vince Cable is an uncommonly good politician, and when Nick Clegg finally moves on to become the next leader of the Tory Party, it will be Vince, and not the earnest Simon Hughes, whol will succeed him as the popular new leader of the opposition Lib Dems. Masterly.