Ed: Narnian resident
Co-op support
The Co-operative Party has reported a record increase in new members following Labour’s general election defeat in May. A Party spokesman told the News that almost 500 new members had signed up in the three months since then — mainly online — and that the figure included a substantial number of returning members. – Co-op News.
It’s grim up north London
The workers’ party has its own aristocracy, and it lives in London’s northern hills. Not far from Hugh Gaitskell’s grave in Hampstead, a Narnian village that in every sense looks down on the capital, other Labour leaders have made their homes. Across the Heath—where one of them, Michael Foot, walked his dog—Karl Marx is buried in Highgate cemetery. Bankers and Arsenal footballers may have infiltrated, but this is still a land of liberal writers, celebrities and assorted cognoscenti. During the general election, houses worth millions of pounds had Labour posters in their windows. – The Economist.
Who said that?
“I have enough faith in my fellow creatures in Great Britain to believe that when they have got over the delirium of television, when they realise that their new homes that they have been put into are mortgaged to the hilt, when they realise that the moneylender has been elevated to the highest position in the land… when the years go by and they see the challenge of modern society not being met by the Tories… then we shall lead our people where they deserve to be led.” Here’s your starter for 10. Which of Labour’s five leadership candidates was responsible for that comment, in the wake of the party’s election defeat? – Jeff Randall, The Telegraph.
Cameron cuttlefish
After his comments on Pakistan, David Miliband, the opposition Labour party’s foreign-affairs spokesman compared Cameron to a cuttlefish. “Mr. Cameron has used the last two weeks to make a verbal splash on foreign policy. Like a cuttlefish squirting out ink, his words were copious and created a mess,” – Dow Jones.
David Miliband? Awkward?
Taxi for Miliband
The interviews are all worth watching. The biggest surprise: I think that David Miliband (still the favourite in terms of endorsements and fund-raising) finds the set-up more embarrassing than any of the others. He grins too much at the beginning, and struggles throughout to engage seriously, though some of his answers are quite good. He is awkward, in other words. The Economist on The Sun’s cab interviews – The Economist.
How badly does the Labour Party want new Labour to be old news? That’s the question in the leadership campaign.
Does the party want to stay with the same old “new” stuff – the one that wins elections, but starts wars? If so, vote for Miliband D. Or does the party want to get away from the privatisation-and-bombing formula? –
Morning Star.
Tags: Labour, Labour leadership, Miliband, north london
