Itchytee

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-Ixqw85_P0

The truth is that DM is a thoroughly decent chap who clearly lacks the ruthless streak possessed of his younger brother. He had his chances for the top job and each time he blew it because he just wasn't capable of sticking the knife in GB. His younger brother, by comparison, has proved himself to be utterly ruthless. Not only has he defeated him in the election but has now succeeded in kicking him completely into touch. He's ruthless but clearly also a very subtle politician: the iron fist in the velvet glove. He managed to keep his hands clean during the Blair/Brown years, and he's also managed to out-manoeuvre Balls, who was described in these pages as having a 'thuggush tendency', a true heir to the clunking great fist. Together they'll be just what the party needs. I'm impressed!

If every person who went up for a promotion against a colleague and subsequently lost out to the colleague then reacted as David M has, what a sorry state our workforce would be in.

I appreciate it's been really difficult for David but I am disappointed at his behaviour since saturday. I know in a way he was damned whatever he did but this is grown up politics and as such he should be a grown up and stand by his statements and promises to serve in the Cabinet and in Parliament no matter who won the contest.

Yes the press would have a field day but I thought David said we shouldn't be kowtowing to the media? His series of interviews today rather than a single statement to all the press suggest that he is doing exactly what he preached against.

By the very nature of his behaviour since saturday, he has hogged the media spotlight despite saying he wanted Ed to have his moment. He knows the media well enough to know that would happen. He should have said a simple - I will be serving this government - and left it at that until making a statement to the contrary, instead he chose to encourage the media spotlight his way.

@ Lou - Exactly. I don't think that his behaviour has been either graceful or generous but the reverse. The media is largely running with a narrative which assumes the supremacy of the first born son. The ridiculousness of this drama is immediately clear if you think of Ed Balls behaving like this.

However, D Miliband is not the only Blairite behaving badly because they din'nt get what they wanted...and trying to stitch up the LP, regardless of the damage it causes, is not new. Is it Lord Mandelson et al?

David M's decision has unleashed a storm of negative media focus on his brother. R4 has been merrily peddling the Blairite line about DM's greater leadership virtues. However, encouragingly, few people really care much for what hack Westminster journalists think about anything. Also, it'll all be largely forgotten very soon. Crikey, if you think back, even an event as huge as the expenses scandal was hardly mentioned within weeks of it all kicking off.

As far as Ed M's on the whole good speech yesterday, John Prescott and the rest of the reactionary old guard can look as pissed off as they like. The facts speak for themselves: since 1997, Labour lost millions of votes and thousands of members; in the last election, they were booted out of power; in 2005, less than a quarter of the eligible electorate voted for them. What is a new leader to say to the public in these circumstances: "we were actually spot-on all along, but you were all just too stupid to realise"?

Grow up, Blairites. If you makes you feel better, go and start an illegal war somewhere, part privatise a hospital, or lock someone up for 90 days. Just leave us progressives alone for bit, eh?

How smug and self aggrandising can this man get. He said to Boulton on Sky that it's 'better the party has one clear leader'.

They do David, it's not you - get over yourself and shut up.

We disagree over David M anyway Nick, but vey gracious of you re Ed.

I agree that it's better to have only one leader and we do. I object to David implying in this sentence that if he stayed in the frontline it wouldn't be clear whether he was leader or Ed - that he is the other leader - that's just fueling the media frenzy he has created around himself since saturday in his responses and behaviour. I see no confusion other than that which David and the media are choosing to perpetuate.

I object to him being defined as gracious and doing the right thing by his brother when actually he's stagemanaged the last four or five days to perfection in his own favour and to the detriment of his brother, despite his protestations to the contrary. Gracious - most definitely not. Self serving selfishness - yes.

I also object to the media hype about DM winning the MPs and the members and Ed only winning via the unions, the implication being that it's a block vote rather than thousands of ordinary workers voting under the banner of a particular union.

The media has selective memories with their headlines about Ed being the first leader not to have the backing of his MPs and members in thirty years. They fail to mention that in the last thirty years John Smith stood against one candidate as did Neil Kinnock, Blair stood against two. Therefore, the law of averages suggests that in a five horse race, all the money was never going to be unanimously on one particular candidate as far as MPS and Members were concerned.

I get so damn mad with the media, they seem to be hell bent on creating the news rather than reporting it these days.

On that note, I shall climb down from this particular soapbox.

I didn't vote Ed M either but I'm fully behind him and I hope that he can take us forward, stand up to this government, take them on, win and get us back in government asap.

One more point though before I take both feet off that soapbox lol - sorry Nick.

DM said Ed was chosen 'by the electorate, selectorate'..... that last word is him implying that Ed won by the union vote as it is a body of people responsible for making a selection; otherwise the word electorate would have been perfectly adequate if he meant the people able to vote in an election. So that's another reason why I can't buy the gracious and magnanimous adjectives being assigned to him.

So, who will be Chancellor do you think out of the list available? I would like to see Ed Balls but I can see the dilemna around him so I think Yvette would be the better option even though Balls is the only one who has been taking the fight to the Coalition on cuts and winning on the economy throughout the whole leadership campaign.

Ed Balls it is then :-)

I'm now listening to the Tory Grant Shapps as paper reviewer on Sky repeating over and over again the fact that Ed won only because he got the Union vote. (I'm just envisionioning Derek Simpson et al herding millions of voters to the ballot box with a WMD pointed at their heads whilst ordering them to vote Ed) It's so pathetic isn't it.

When are the politicians and the media going to start treating the public as something other than stupid, easily impressionable and politically ignorant?

Karma.

I really can't see the point in David Milliband, or Brown for that matter, hanging around on the backbenches. Haven't they got anything better to do? Both seats could be held by Labour in a bye election.

'A wry eyebrow raised'??? Now that's spin for you.

He had a face like a smacked arse throughout and his comment to HH was more than a wry eyebrow raised.

Not a single statement to the press pack but a series of interviews conducted this afternoon. David M cares about David M and no one else, not least of all his party.

Not good enough in my book i'm sad to say no doubt he'll be off for good given a suitable period of time