Ukip could make Miliband prime minister but he’s not ready

by Samuel Dale

Douglas Carswell’s defection to Ukip has brought parliament back with a bang.

The independent-minded Conservative MP is fighting a September by-election in Clacton as a Ukip candidate. He is odds-on favourite to win.

The Daily Mail claims eight more Tory MPs are in talks to defect.

Ukip leader Nigel Farage has told us to brace ourselves for more Tory and Labour MP defections.

The right is splintering as we head towards a tight election and it means only one thing: Ed Miliband is more likely to be in Downing Street next year.

Farage and Ukip want to pretend they have a broad base beyond the Conservatives but it is illusory.

Its northern presence is only in Labour bastions where the best they can hope for is to make up the opposition in a general election.

It is a party that has made a name for itself by collecting disillusioned ex-Tories and will continue to do so.

Neil Hamilton, Stuart Wheeler, Roger Helmer, Carswell and even Farage. Ex-Tories are their primary currency.

Carswell’s defection underlines that Ukip votes could stop enough Tory MPs being elected to seriously damage David Cameron.

Ed Miliband could be prime minister within months. That fact is more likely today than last week.

But our dear leader is still acting like a student politician. He needs to get serious about governing.

Bashing bankers, Murdoch and anyone wealthy is not an agenda for government.

What is Miliband’s foreign policy? How would he tackle the an emboldened Russia or rampant Isis?

And what about economic policy? Where would he make cuts to tackle the deficit? Would he cut the budgets of police, hospitals, schools or all three? And by how much?

And what about tackling terrorism at joke? Does he agree with TPIMS? Or police reform?

Or social care? Pensions? Education? Health? Housing?

Miliband’s so-called big policy ideas can be divided into three categories.

Firstly, his crazy decision to bring back failed Labour policies.

This includes notables such as the 50p income tax rate and the 10p tax band.

Secondly, there are the easy hits on minor subjects such as payday loans or gaming machines.

Here, Miliband offers heavy regulatory intervention to stop a problem area. No one seriously disagrees and it sails through the insert machine, no arguments.

Thirdly, there is the gimmick. This includes a people’s prime minister’s questions or his call for decency in politics.

None of these are part of a crunchy, serious agenda. Gordon Brown became prime minister with no new ideas and he flopped.

On policy, Miliband has a lot of ground to make up. A dubious energy price freeze is not enough.

Constituency boundaries and Tory failures are conspiring to make himprime minister, but Ed Miliband is not even close to being ready.

Sam Dale is a financial and political journalist


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18 Responses to “Ukip could make Miliband prime minister but he’s not ready”

  1. swatantra says:

    Ed could well be walking into No 10 in May without even making the slightest effort. Its the way the Boundaries are drawn up. No amount of jigging seems to introduce parity into the system. Its not Labours fault at all, they have no influence on the Boundary Commission; its just the way the cookie crumbles. Sam Dale may be right in that Ed hasn’t a clue what he will do as PM, except play it by ear. Thats why the Scottish Referendum will be a game changer and force all paries to review the State of Britain today. There are deep divisions in Society and even in all 3 main Parties.
    No one party will win the GE but Labour will come out top on seats.
    The best solution would be for Ed to head a Govt of National Unity and Recovery, a Govt of all talents. But he’ll probably put Party before Country.

  2. John Reid says:

    Good article, and a lot of people think this, if we win we would be so bad ,we could destroy our own party by being so bad, we’d lose by default the 4 elections afterwards, I want the Tories out, but ,it won’t just be the party that will br unpopular due to. This,if we’re terrible in office the far left will blame the right of the party, for our failures

  3. Alexsandr says:

    the useless wonk will never be ready. And people know he is a union puppet.

  4. 07052015 says:

    I thought this was a labour site ?

    Old dan the man fan club out in force.

  5. 07052015 says:

    So just as the tories fall into a further bout of division and in fighting with ukip on the ascendant our response is to rubbish our own leader.Imo who shows a real radical streak with if anything too many new ideas.

    Student leader?,student commentary more like.

  6. John Reid says:

    07052015, worrying labour may win in 2015 and be so bad it puts us out of power fora generation,does t mean, that posting here freeing doesn’t make us labour voters

    We won in 1974 by default of the public. Ei g not quite ready for ted Heaths attempts to control unions, inflation, we won by default in z74 and then had hyper inflation, winter of discontent it put us out of power for a generation, there’s lots of similarities with 2015 and 1974′

    As a baroness Scotland said to me, it would have been better to let Ted Heath win in 1974′ we’d never have had Thatcherism, the 1971 workers bill was better than Tebbits unions reforms

  7. steve says:

    07052015: “[Miliband] shows a real radical streak”

    Ah, yes. Miliband supported the disastrous military intervention in Libya.

    Miliband, having argued for a punitive strike against Assad, attempted to take the credit for preventing war when Cameron threw in the towel.

    Miliband cooked up a fake crisis at Falkirk in order to the dump the link with the trade unions.

    No surprise if, as a further example of his “radical streak”, Miliband renames the Party he leads: the Progress Party.

  8. swatantra says:

    The clue is in the title ‘Uncut’. we acta s critical friends making consytructive comments; not just as cannon fodder for the Party. Its in Labours best interest, as illustrated i by recent events in Labour Councils where they just weigh the votes without givinganything a second thought, and where Labour get into the mentality of having the divine right to rule.

  9. Mr Akira Origami says:

    When I read the headline I thought for one moment Ed Milliband had defected to UKIP.

    Phew! That would have been a news scoop.

    On policy Ed does has a lot of ground to make up. Carwyn Jones and the Labour party in Wales can show Ed how Socialism can be attractive to the electorate. Ed Miliband’s entire Shadow Cabinet has met with Carwyn Jones’ Cabinet in Wales. The joint session took place at a secret location in South Wales.

    Welsh Labour have shown how to gain and hold on to power. Let’s hope the meeting has given Ed and the Shadow Cabinet some pointers for some effective policies for Labour to gain credibility – going on to win the next election.

    http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/ed-milibands-shadow-cabinet-meet-7283839

    Carsley’s defection is a blow for the Tories but lets not forget that UKIP is also a threat to Labour.

    Micahael Savage rports: Labour voters are defecting to Ukip because the party has become too “middle class”, a leading ally of Ed Miliband has warned.
    Lord Glasman, a policy guru who was ennobled by Mr Miliband, said that the rise of Ukip would hit Labour “in the heartlands”. He urged the party to adopt a series of measures to win back working-class support.

  10. Tafia says:

    I see the idiot savant Yvette has said she will make reporting of child abuse mandaory.

    Much as it may surprise her, but what went on in Rotherham was reported – by front line to management, by management to Police and politicians, by parents to Police, by Police to CPS etc etc.

    And it was suppressed. Under a Labour government.

    What has to be done is a law that all instances of alleged child abuse will always be investigated, fully recorded, and will always be prosecuted idf their is a case, will never be secret as to why and who said no prosecution will take place, and if anyone at all – no matter what the level, attempts to intervene they will always be prosecuted as well, as an accomplice to a sex offender.

    I see a senior Police officer in Rochdale is now saying political interference stopped prosecutions there. And the time frame? A Labour government.

    So there you have it – Blair presided over illegal wars and industrial scale child abuse.

  11. John Reid says:

    At the 2010 election, Labour was only more popular with the public than the Tories on 2 issues :aw and order and pensions, law not due to Id cards and holding innocent peoples DNA, as those issues due to mishaps and hostility, had seen the public go from 5 years before that supporting them, too feeling it was excessive, Labour was more popular than the Tories due to tackling issues such as hate crime,, new trafficking, internet laws, and sexual/domestic abuse more serious plus brining back neighbour hood policing,
    Now labour is playing on its one issue its always took for granted the NHS,
    To quote Clinton, it’s the economy stupid, Cameron didn’t win last time despite labours record on the economy, this time it’ll be the Tories have got the economy, running

  12. Landles Peasant says:

    Miliband is as much use as a chocolate fireguard. If he wants my vote then he must pledge to abolish Benefit Sanctions, and to increase State Benefits to the legal level as defined by the Council of Europe. Bashing the wealthy is an agenda I support and would heartily vote for, if the rhetoric were backed by actions. Labour are way too Right-wing for me at the moment however. As a radical Working Class Socialist I’ll be voting Green, not Labour.

  13. BenM says:

    All new PMs aren’t really ready.

    Cameron patently wasn’t and has turned out to be unfit for the role.

    But it’s good to see Uncut finally recognise that Ed is on the cusp of Downing Street instead of wallowing in the denial that the Tories were somehow unbeatable.

    We’ve had loads of uncut articles about how Labour were going to get stuffed in May despite zero polling evidence.

    Then it dawned on writers here that the Tories were not going to win the election, but Ed was still not going to be PM nur, nur, nur.

    Now there seems to be a grudging acceptance that people living outside the Westminster bubble acknowledge the Tories are utterly hopeless, and no they may not turn to Labour with any enthusiasm, but electoral maths and a dismal Tory record in government means an Ed Milinad premiership is more likely than not.

    You’re 4 years behind the rest of us.

  14. BenM says:

    @Tafia

    “So there you have it – Blair presided over illegal wars and industrial scale child abuse.”

    Jimmy Saville.

    So there you have it. Thatcher presided over 3 million unemployed and industrial scale child abuse.

  15. John Reid says:

    BenM, the point is that EdM isn’t even ready to be leader of the opposition

  16. jean shaw says:

    Having heard the Daily Mirror’s chief political reporter on the BBC’s Daily Politics today saying that Miliband will not offer an in/out referendum on the EU because this plays well with big business and the City makes me think it is Miliband who will ensure UKIP’s victory because not giving a referendum is contrary to what the voters want and more traditional Labour supporters will switch to UKIP. Stuff big business.

  17. John Reid says:

    I agree with Tavia, BenM, Yvette is clearly mistaken, and Saville getting away with it under athatcher, shows how Ms Cooper is mistaken

  18. As local government and ” democracy is smashed to bits- it feels like the party is being taken over by middle class idiots and failed students. It is time to take direct action – with some real messages -at least the YES voters in Scotland stick together, this party feels like a sinking ship – real socialism is required urgently !!!!

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