Most new leaders, however freshly they come to the role, quickly develop and mature in the role, some on their way to greatness but most to at least adequacy.There were similar hopes for Ed Miliband when, thanks to union support, he leapfrogged his brother in the final round of the Labour leadership contest. We may not have expected to see Ed-The-Great yet but the emergence of Ed-The-Rather-Pathetic is disappointing.
Why this unflattering epithet? A political party leader should be there with the big vision. Where the country is going, how it's going to change things for the better and how it's going to get there. We are seeing none of this from Ed and his team. Many are totally silent although they formerly sat with him on the government front bench and do now on the other side of the mace.Where for example are Mr and Mrs Balls? Silence, though maybe on reflection that's no bad thing.
The first salvos of 2011 have not been exciting. Ed is back on the track of "the cuts" (actually Government spending goes up in real terms over the next 4 years) and how devastating they will be particularly to the poor. Labour has for ever been obsessed,-as opposed to caring,- about the poor as well they might be. A socialist party depends on a large unhappy section of the community for bedrock votes. It will therefore subsidise and support poverty rather than taking structural measures such as providing real educational parity between the state and private sectors.Ed does not mention the Labour Chancelllor, Alistair Darling's, aim to take VAT up to 18.5%, only 1.5% not 5% different from the Tory move. Neither does he mention the preferred Labour move to to raise employers' National Insurance contributions which would have further removed incentives to companies to add to their employee numbers. He appears to have the usual leftist mixed views about employers. On the one hand they have merits in providing jobs and tax revenue and giving unions something to do, but on the other they are evil, exploitative, sometimes rich (on the backs of their downtrodden workers of course)and should be milked almost to death to make sure they don't get away with whatever it is they are up to.
Above all there is not a beep from Ed as to how Labour would tackle the structural and increasing Government annual and cumulative debt racked up between 2000 and their fall in March 2010. Worse still, they continue to peddle denial and blame it all on the bankers as if all was rosy until 2007/8. It wasn't. Under Brown and his close advisors, notably Eds Miliband and Balls, UK Plc had been binge borrowing and binge spending. A stronger opposition should have been screaming "Iceberg ahead" from the top of the masts from at least 2001 onwards but, preoccupied with their own problems ,they failed to do so. There is nothing uplifting, new or exciting coming out of Labour right now. Just carping, whinging, going on about the unquantified devastation about to be wrought on the idealised "Hard working families". There is no sign whatever either of acknowledgment of their past financial misdeeds or "Here's what we do now".
As result British politics, especially as reported by the media, are currently intensely boring. Efforts are currently in hand to talk up the effects of the flu and blame whichever nanny is preferred for not telling our good citizens to get a flu jab. The idea that there might be any personal responsibility to do this is of course unthinkable. If Big Brother State hasn't spoken, the the hard working families, single mums, inadequate dads ,poor etc can't be expected to have raised themselves from their couches for the long walk to their local surgeries or the chemist.
All this gets back to political debate and genuine choice depending on two or more players.The coalition is doing its best to make the running, keep impetus up and get things done in the early high energy era of its term before the inevitable resistance or inertia builds up.A strong opposition does not yet exist. Ed picks up the minutiae, rolls them into wet snowballs and lobs them around hopefully.None really hit anything or inspire. Emotionally he would probably prefer to be leading his party from the picket line or protest march but at least he seems to have been dissuaded from that. He is by no means a spent force. He is politically astute even if blinkered by his innate hatred of Tories and all things Tory. He is also ,as his brother knows, completely ruthless when he really wants something. He can not be discounted and may yet arise from the nearly dead. His party may well win next weeks's byelection and claim that their renaissance is under way.They will know though that a protest is different from a real swing.
Ed's much more adult and worldly brother David would have been a different story,- and still may be. Meanwhile Dave, Nick & Co will be be grateful that at this stage of the game they are facing Ed-The-Rather-Pathetic. They will be in no hurry to see him morph into something more like a leader or to be deposed.
