Ed Miliband on this blog

No I haven't got an intreview with Ed Miliband, I think I may be insufficiently on message for Ed, but I thought I would look back at my previous postings about ed Miliband.

26 January 2008 - 'Democracy Gordon Brown style'

'What I find interesting in this video is quite how smug and self-assured Ed Miliband is, he makes David Miliabnd look almost human. It is also quite clear that Ed Miliband has not read the Lisbon Treaty. Hilary Benn states that "... it was very different in character... it was, that's my view and we live in a democracy. OK" Sunday lunch at the Benn family house must be fun.

...

Ed Miliband's promise of a "vigorous debate" looks like bullshit to me.'

June 20008 - 'An extremely large, extremely powerful idiot'

'A good letter that makes some serious points but I must take exception with one part of the letter:

"we've taken the brightest and best, the finest intellects of our age, put them in a room together and created an extremely large, extremely powerful idiot.


"brightest and best"? In no particular order I give you for your consideration - Geoff Hoon, Des Browne, Yvette Cooper, Ed Balls, Ed Miliband, Harriett Harman, Hilary Ben, David Miliband, Alistair Darling, Gordon Brown. Brightest and best, really? Has the UK sunk that low?'

31 July 2008 - 'Which is the least trustworthy?'

'David Miliband or Ed Miliband, tough choice isn't it? You can also "enjoy" the equally viable Hilary Benn.

I know I have posted this video before but since David Miliband is accused of wanting to be our Prime Minister, I think it only right that the public see him in all his glory. '

5 October 2008 - 'Climate Change, the Labour government and the BBC'

'I am getting really angry now, the moron Brown has decided to promote the oleaginous Ed Miliband to head a new department of Energy and Climate Change. This probably means the end of any remnant of sensible debate over energy provision in the UK and the last nail in the coffin of any pretence of debate over the matter of Climate Change. The BBC have covered the story with the headline "Greens welcome new climate dept" and comments from Green groups but nary a word from anyone who knows the truth about Climate Change. '

16 October 2008 - 'My advice to you all...'

'My advice to you all is to BUY A GENERATOR. As our Climate Change and Energy Secretary, Ed Miliband, has committed the UK to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by middle of this century.

To paraphrase Sir Edward Grey "The lamps will be going out all over Britain; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime."

This government's eco-stupidity seems to know no bounds, unless this is just another piece of scorched earth politics.'

25 Decembefr 2008 - 'Bloody Victoria Derbyshire again'

'Ed Milliband is allowed to spout the usual highly selective statistics and avoid answering tough questions, whilst Victoria Derbyshire is as usual too weak an interviewer to try and get him to answer the questions.

However at around 09:46 for a few minutes even the vile VD realises that Ed Milliband is not answering questions about public sector pay rises and election bribes and pushes a bit harder than I would expect her too. Maybe listening to Ed Milliband made even her realise that this Labour government are not all they say they are.'

Peter Lilley wants an answer from Ed Miliband - somehow I doubt he'll get a meaningful one'

'"Dear Secretary of State

You recently slipped out, without notifying Parliament, a massive revision of the estimated costs and benefits of the Climate Change Act.

I hope that on consideration, you will agree that changes amounting to nearly £1 trillion require both discussion in, and explanation to, Parliament. This is particularly important given the extraordinary way the government treated its own original estimates of the costs and benefits of the Climate Change Bill during the Bill’s passage through Parliament.

You will recall that your original estimates of costs and benefits of the Climate Change Bill showed that its potential costs (1) at some £205 billion were almost twice the maximum benefits of £110 billion. This was embarrassing for you because the reason governments are required to publish an Impact Assessment giving estimates of costs and benefits of any Bill is to enable Parliament to “determine whether the benefits justify the costs” (2)...'

8 June 2009 - 'The Cabinet and their pasts'

'Ed Miliband - "a Labour party researcher and rose to become one of then Chancellor Gordon Brown's confidantes and chairman of HM Treasury's Council of Economic Advisers. Miliband was elected Labour Member of Parliament for the South Yorkshire constituency of Doncaster North in the 2005 general election. "'

13 September 2009 - '"There's no danger of power cuts in the next decade"'

'"There's no danger of power cuts in the next decade."

So apparently said Ed Miliband today on the Andrew Marr show. Would you care for a small wager Ed? '

26 September 2009 - 'Ministers back PM pre-Conference'

'So the only Ministers prepared to back Gordon Brown in public seem to be his closest ally Ed Balls, one of the few ministers who those who know of him detest as much as Gordon Brown and Peter Mandelson, the living piece of slime that is Ed Miliband and Gordon Brown's general election campaign manager Douglas Alexander - impressive?'

14 September 2009 - 'Climate Change - Story 2'

'

"Ed Miliband, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, said: “The overwhelming body of scientific information is stacked up against the deniers and shows us that climate change is man-made and is happening now. We know that we still have a way to go in informing people about climate change and that is why we make no apologies about pushing forward with our new Act on CO2 campaign.” "

"deniers" that is such a scary word as it hints at future action to stop "deniers" from being able to deny the truth of climate change. Are we being lined up for a return to the Spanish Inquisition? Where denial of the given truth is just not allowed. Of course Ed Miliband makes no apologies, he's a Labour minister and they don't need to apologise for anything. I presume that the junior, but slimier, Miliband is positioning himself for a role in some supranational eco-body post the general election; whatever happens the earning power of these power crazed loons must not be affected. '

15 December 2009 - 'Ed Miliband is innumerate' '

"The hon. Gentleman knows that we have published our own home energy efficiency plan for 700 million households to be insulated by 2020 and we have said that we will pilot it in the low-carbon transition plan, which we will be announcing shortly. The problem with the hon. Gentleman's position is that he says that we can give £6,500 to everybody on day one. I do not know how he will pay for every household to have that. I asked him in my speech to clarify-perhaps he can advise us now-how he will pay for that £6,500 on day one."

700 million households? Either there is more immigration than even Migration Watch think might be possible or Ed Miliband has no idea what he is saying. Bear in mind that Hansard is the official record and if Ed Miliband (or an official) had gone to Hansard and said I said the wrong figure I believe they would have let him change it for the record. Maybe Ed Miliband and his team just don't care about the official record or the truth; or more likely they know that this figure is no more ridiculous than many other figures published by this Labour government. As I blogged the other day

"But actually, he thought as he re-adjusted the Ministry of Plenty's figures, it was not even forgery. It was merely the substitution of one piece of nonsense for another. Most of the material that you were dealing with had no connexion with anything in the real world, not even the kind of connexion that is contained in a direct lie. Statistics were just as much a fantasy in their original version as in their rectified version. A great deal of the time you were expected to make them up out of your head. For example, the Ministry of Plenty's forecast had estimated the output of boots for the quarter at one-hundred-and-forty-five million pairs. The actual output was given as sixty-two millions. Winston, however, in rewriting the forecast, marked the figure down to fifty-seven millions, so as to allow for the usual claim that the quota had been overfulfilled. In any case, sixty-two millions was no nearer the truth than fifty-seven millions, or than one-hundred-and-forty-five millions. Very likely no boots had been produced at all. Likelier still, nobody knew how many had been produced, much less cared. All one knew was that every quarter astronomical numbers of boots were produced on paper, while perhaps half the population of Oceania went barefoot. And so it was with every class of recorded fact, great or small. Everything faded away into a shadow-world in which, finally, even the date of the year had become uncertain."

That's from 1984 and I know that resorting to 1984 parallels is somewhat trite, but with this Labour government it is just so perfect.'

2 February 2010 - 'The return of Azad Ali

'I see that Azad Ali is back in the news. It seems that the simply delightful civil servant who used his personal website to justify the killing of British troops in Iraq appeared at the "Progressive London" conference organised by Ken Livingstone along with Harriet Harman and Ed Miliband. So much for community cohesion or are this labour government so desperate for votes that they are willing to cosy up to people such as Azad Ali? '

14 March 2010 - 'not supported by solid science'

'Climate Change of course; the story is in The Times and is that

"TWO government advertisements that use nursery rhymes to warn people of the dangers of climate change have been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for exaggerating the potential harm.

The adverts, commissioned by Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, used the rhymes to suggest that Britain faces an inevitable increase in storms, floods and heat waves unless greenhouse gas emissions are brought under control.

The ASA has ruled that the claims made in the newspaper adverts were not supported by solid science and has told the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) that they should not be published again."

The article also contains this interesting section that I think needs wider dissemination (my emphasis):

"The rulings will be an embarrassment for Miliband, who has tried to portray his policies as firmly science-based. He had commissioned two posters, four press advertisements and a short film for television and cinema, which started appearing in October last year in the run-up to the Copenhagen climate talks.

They attracted 939 complaints — more than the ASA received for any advertisement last year. The deluge posed problems for the ASA, which is not a scientific body, so it decided to compare the text of Miliband’s adverts with the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Based on that comparison, it ruled that two of the DECC’s adverts had broken the advertising code on three counts: substantiation, truthfulness and environmental claims."

So even when compared to the increasingly discredited IPCC report, Ed Miliband's department's claims were found to have broken the advertising code "on three counts: substantiation, truthfulness and environmental claims". When will the 'warmists' stop lying to us? '

5 May 2010 - 'Who should I vote for

'More generally vote anything but Labour, as the first priority is to rid this country of Gordon Brown, Peter Mandelson, Ed Balls, Harriet Harman, Jack Straw et al. But before you vote for any party other than the Conservatives, remember that any result other than a Conservative majority government risks a Labour Prime Minister and it is likely to be one of those I mentioned above or possibly worse a smug David Miliband or an even smugger Ed Miliband. '

20 June 2010 - 'Newsnight Labour leadership debate

'Has Ed Miliband developed a speech impediment or has he always had a slightly camp lithp? Also has he put on weight and why the ... odd ... pauses?

...

Ed Miliband saying we should look forward and not discuss the past reminds me of a school swot whining "It's not fair".'

29 August 2010 - 'Unbelievable comment of the day - 'Tories believe that Ed Miliband is an intellectual heavyweight'

'Yesterday's Guardian contained a hysterical piece by Nicholas Watt, their chief political correspondent. It has many unbelievable lines, here's a few:

'David Cameron believes David Miliband has a better chance than his brother Ed of reaching out to middle Britain Photograph: David Miliband poses the greatest threat to the Conservative party of all the candidates in the Labour leadership contest, David Cameron has said in private remarks that could change the dynamic of the campaign just days before millions of ballot papers are posted.

...

A well-placed source told the Guardian: "David Cameron said the candidate he hoped for was Ed Miliband, and the candidate he most feared was David Miliband."

Ed Miliband, who is thought to be slightly behind his brother in first preference votes, but who hopes second choice votes will propel him to victory, is likely to be irritated by Cameron's remarks, which echo those of supporters of Tony Blair: his backers believe that his elder brother is being supported by what they describe as the "Blair machinery".

Tory high command believes David Miliband is flawed and lacks the easy manner of Tony Blair, who was regarded by Cameron and George Osborne as unbeatable. But Downing Street believes that the senior Miliband, who this week told the Labour party to abandon its "comfort zone", stands the best chance of reaching the sort of voters wooed by Blair.

Tories believe that Ed Miliband is an intellectual heavyweight, but showed the influence of his mentor, Gordon Brown, this week when he in effect attacked his brother with a warning about remaining in the "New Labour comfort zone".'

Hmmm might it be possible that this leak is designed to confuse the Labour leadership election.


Meanwhile in Ed Miliband related news, I read that:

'One of the country’s biggest unions last night threatend to withdraw funding from the Labour party unless Ed Miliband is elected as leader next month.

Paul Kenny, the General Secretary of the GMB union, said other unions will follow suit if David Miliband or Ed Balls were chosen to succeed Gordon Brown.

The warning, which senior Shadow Cabinet members will view as blackmail, came a week after Lord Prescott revealed that Labour were 'on the verge of bankruptcy'.

He said that the party was bring kept alive by 'trade union contributions, high-value donations and the goodwill of the Co-op bank'.

Asked by The Times if his union would withdraw funding from Labour if Ed Miliband did not win, Mr Kenny said: 'If the new leader offers us more of the same, many unions — including our own — would have to consider where we are at.

'Ed Balls and David Miliband represent where we’ve been. They are not without talent. I would not rubbish them. But if the direction of the party went off chasing some right-of-centre ground . . .'

He added: 'Ed Miliband is not ashamed of Labour’s core values. It’s not about a big society. It’s about a fair society.''

Hmmm, 'Ed Balls and David Miliband represent where we’ve been'. That's odd I could have sworn that Ed Miliband served in the last Labour cabinet and wrote a large part of the 2010 Labour manifesto that lead to a Labour defeat. Am I wrong?

In even more important news, I read in The Mirror that: Lily Allen has tweeted

'Why did David Miliband cross the road? To get to the middle. Vote Ed.'

So Lily Allen is on Ed Miliband, hmmm.

There are more postings on Ed Miliband on this blog, take a look.