I must say that I am almightily concerned by the vacuity of the leadership contest so far. There seems to be a lot of zombification going on. David Miliband appears to be the most vacuous of the lot, with Ed Balls a close second, if only because Andy Burnham has declared himself the ‘continuity candidate’. Which happens to be exactly what I don’t want to vote for.
At least he has cards on the table, and will receive my last transfer, which DM and EdB aren’t yet worthy of until I get some policy commitments or real philosophy.
On David Miliband in particular, I completely agree with my fellow Bevanite here, save for the fact that I think free membership is a good idea. I feel that David Miliband is perhaps a little unfairly typecast as eye-wateringly Blairite, but I don’t see what’s wrong with doing that given that he seems to keen not to repudiate what is effectively the most powerful attack against him.
I am concerned that he doesn’t want to disassociate himself from neoliberalism, the war in Iraq, civil illiberality or the abolition of the Labour Party via the smashing of the union link. He seems to have nothing to say about any of it.
Thanks for the endorsement Tom, though I’m sure you’d agree that it’d be better if we didn’t have to write about such things in the first place.
You may also have a point about my characterisation of Miliband as “eye-wateringly Blairite”. For better or worse, at least Blair believed in something.
Ralph is rotating rapidly somewhere.
You ain’t wrong there. What a barren field.