In all the hype and hyperbole surrounding David Miliband’s latest “attack” on Ed Miliband, it is important to remember that the former foreign secretary’s headline-grabbing essay in this week’s New Statesman was meant, formally at least, to be a response to a long article on social democracy written by Roy Hattersley and academic Kevin Hickson and published in Political Quarterly late last year.
For example, Miliband writes:
Roy has been pretty consistent in his views over 40 years, even if the framing labels in the party (right, left, new, old, radical, conservative) have swivelled around him. His commentary on politics is born not of self-promotion but out of belief. But that doesn’t mean he is right.
Subscribe to the New Statesman for £1 a week
In today’s Guardian, however, Hattersley responds to Miliband’s critique – and he doesn’t pull any punches:
Understandably, David bridles at criticism of the governments in which he served. We have no doubt that they did much of which the Labour party can be proud. We said so when we campaigned for its re-election. David makes the tired old jibe about the luxury of “principle without power”. But we believe that future office will elude us until we establish a distinctive radical reputation. That requires a leader who has the courage and character to acknowledge the fundamental flaws in New Labour thinking. It is one of the reasons why we voted for Ed Miliband 18 months ago.
You can read Hattersley’s full piece here.
Meanwhile, in the Telegraph today, Matthew Norman, in his own inimitable style, lets rip at the elder Miliband:
Little Ed may have lethal presentational problems, but he also has guts. When he wanted the leadership, he rang the doorbell and charged into the house, even though it meant trampling over his poor old mum’s heart. David, no lavishly gifted communicator himself, is a castrato. He is the countertenor in the Labour choir, singing a self-pitying requiem to the death of personal ambition at a pitch to shatter glass.
Ouch.
Content from our partners
Related
Join the debate
Subscribe here to comment