Ed & David MilibandEd Miliband is the new Labour leader; it has been announced at a special conference in Manchester. It's official - the name of Britain's next Prime Minister who will have to rebuild the country after the half cock slash and burn decisions of the Demolition Coalition is Ed Miliband! Bring on the Battle - the sooner we tear the unprincipled LibCon coalition of opportunism apart the less lives will be destroyed! We don’t want a Britain fit for millionaires, alleged Bankers and other assorted spivs!
I must be honest; I have not been on a winning streak lately. I supported another Ed, Ed Balls for Labour Party Leader and Oonagh King as Labour Candidate for Mayor of London - Ed Miliband and Ken Livingstone respectively were the winners of the contests. Nevertheless this is the first Labour leadership election since 1994 and is a vital part of the renewal of the Labour Party and the critical stocktaking which the Party has to perform after 13 transformational years in government.
Ed will be a strong leader for our Party and lead the fight against Tory plans for cuts that will devastate our public services. He's not just a fearless leader to fight the Tories; Ed is a strong supporter of trade unions. We've reached the end of months of campaigning and, this afternoon, we start to write the next chapter of this party's and this country's history. Much is being made that Ed Miliband gained a narrow victory over his brother David due to Trade Union support. This snide campaign denigrates the democratic nature of the Labour Party and the huge sense of engagement that Party Members and affiliated Trade Unions had in the election where one third each of the votes were cast by MP’s & MEP’s and Constituency Labour Parties (Clp’s), Members and Trade Unions and Affiliates.
So for instance in my case there was a full debate at my Clp who supported David Miliband, I also cast my individual Member’s vote where I could give my preference votes to the candidates and ditto on my vote as a member of an affiliated Trade Union. Whereas my Union recommended a candidate I was free to ignore this (I did!) and all votes were returned to the Independent Electoral Reform Commission to count so the result was unimpeachable. So the mischievous accusations that Sayeeda Warsi and others are making are wrong – this was an organised and regenerative leadership campaign with over 60 joint hustings by the 5 candidates which had real debate, real involvement and real choice. The results, round by round, were;
http://www2.labour.org.uk/votes-by-roundABBOTT, Diane 7.42 0 0 0
BALLS, Ed 11.79 13.23 16.02 0
BURNHAM, Andy 8.68 10.41 0 0
MILIBAND, David 37.78 38.89 42.72 49.35
MILIBAND, Ed 34.33 37.47 41.26 50.65We can be proud that in every corner of Britain, people are joining the Labour Party as members and supporters and getting ready for the fight ahead. Since the May General election Labour has over 32,000 new member join.
The Labour Party Conference at G-MEX Manchester - The former Central Railway StationEd Miliband beat brother David by the wafer thin margin of 50.65% to 49.35% after second, third and fourth preference votes came into play. Ed Balls was third, Andy Burnham fourth and Diane Abbott last in the ballot of MPs, members and trade unionists. Mr Miliband, 40, replaces acting leader Harriet Harman in the contest triggered by the resignation of Gordon Brown.
He paid tribute to each of his fellow candidates in turn and told the conference: "Today we draw a line under this contest and move forward united as a team." The Milibands are an interesting family. Of Russian Jewish descent their philosopher father’s remains rest under the watchful eye of Karl Marx in a corner of Highgate cemetery in north London. 12 yards or so from Marx's famous statue and tomb lies a small square stone. "Writer Teacher Socialist" reads the simple inscription. Ralph Miliband was one of Britain's foremost political theoreticians, an academic of world renown. And he was proud to proclaim himself a Marxist. He often told the story of being discharged in 1945 after his wartime service in the Navy where his CO said “good luck and make sure you don’t vote Labour Miliband.” In 1945 Labour won the British General Election with a landslide.
Ralph Miliband died in 1994, a few weeks before Tony Blair took over the Labour Party. By then he could see, with great unease, both his sons embarking on careers within what soon become known as New Labour - David advising Tony Blair, and Ed in the other camp, working for Gordon Brown. Ralph Miliband was not a Marxist in the Marxist-Leninist sense. He was no fan of the Soviet dictatorships and one-party states. Nor did he believe in violent revolution to overthrow capitalism. In crude terms he was neither a Stalinist nor a Trot. Yet he was deeply sceptical about whether Parliament would ever do much to emancipate the working class. Miliband was convinced instead that progress would depend on activity outside Parliament, through trade unions and other protest groups liberating themselves through radical activity.
For more on how Communism was born in London see;
http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2010/09/red-flag.html In the longer term, the question is how Labour goes about renewing itself in preparation for the next election. There’ll be a second opportunity to ask the questions it could be asking now, once there’s a leader in place. There is a huge democratic deficit at the heart of British politics today. The May 2010 General Election resulted in the LibCon Coalition of the Conservative Party who didn’t win the election and the Liberal Democrats who most definitely lost the election and whose promise of changing the “Face of British Politics” turned out to be a busted flush. Since then the public has been treated to a drip, drip, drip of spending cuts and tax raises based on slash and burn policies which were never put to the electorate. It is now clear that under the guise of “fiscal responsibility” what is happening is an ideologically driven attack on State services and the whole concept of “Society.” For David Cameron’s Big Society read Bogus Society.
Tony Blair - winner of 3 General ElectionsSo the huge achievements of the Labour Governments which ruled a successful and prosperous Britain for 13 years are now being sneered at – Cool Britannia is being supplanted by the Demolition Coalitions Cruel Britannia.
The Demolition Coalition and the Labour Leadership Campaign has made the UK electorate realise why Labour is different. With its roots in the struggles for ordinary people’s rights by the Trade Union Movement and mutual self help by the Co-Operative Society it is set apart from the shallow opportunism of other parties and is the only political movement which can bring fairness and growth to Britain. As the outcome of the last election and the destructive experimentation of the Demolition Coalition have shown the Lib Dems were not an alternative to the overweening selfishness of the Tories. So let the New Battle of Britain commence for the hearts and minds of the British Electorate and for a society committed to fairness and opportunity.
Harriet Harman - Acting Labour LeaderEven in the 5 short months since the General Election the swing in the national mood has been remarkable with Labour without a permanent leader now level pegging in the polls and Lib Dem supporters feeling betrayed. As the events of the credit Crunch and the Banking Meltdown have shown the party which represents those who sell their honest Labour is the source of honest values in society. Let the new Battle of Britain commence with the first major engagement being the London Mayoral Election of 2012, if the Coalition of Millionaires has not been consumed by its own contradictions before then.
As Ed Miliband said to the Labour Conference in Manchester; "My responsibility is to work every hour of every day, with a united team, to get David Cameron out of Downing Street as soon as possible."
The Labour Leadership Candidates.
