Posts Tagged ‘world cup’

The Sun photo-opp farce shows how Labour’s activist tail wags the party dog

13/06/2014, 05:15:29 PM

by Atul Hatwal

Only in today’s Labour party, with this Labour leader, could a photo-opp for Britain’s most popular newspaper, degenerate into such utter farce.

Set aside for a moment the inexplicable political judgement in agreeing to the picture in the first place. The judgement that a leader who has defined himself as the iconoclastic scourge of Rupert Murdoch, could credibly pitch-in to help the Sun’s World Cup promotion, without harming his brand.  Difficult as it might be, set that aside.

Because once the decision to take part had been made, that should have been it. Yes there was going to be criticism and yes the picture was gormless, but this should have just been an afternoon’s amusement for the Twitterati.

Instead, Ed Miliiband’s response to his party critics has turned a minor Twitter storm into a running news sore where, yet again, his leadership is in question. Today’s quasi-apology is as disingenuous as it is unbelievable:

“Ed Miliband was promoting England’s bid to win the World Cup and is proud to do so.

But he understands the anger that is felt towards the Sun over Hillsborough by many people in Merseyside and he is sorry to those who feel offended.”

First, to pretend that the photo-opp was about England and the World Cup takes the viewing public to be imbeciles. It’s quite clearly a promotion for the Sun. The clue is in the copy of the Sun that Ed Miliband is holding up.

Second, the unquestioning capitulation in the face of protests from Liverpool’s Labour activists and MPs is worrying.

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10 lessons for Labour from England’s hopeless World Cup.

28/06/2010, 03:01:46 PM

1. Don’t blame external factors.

OK, so the Lampard goal that never was is damn irritating. But the truth is that England were ordinary at their very best throughout the tournament and no more. They were downright awful yesterday.

Equally, for Labour, its performance in the general election was very poor. It could have been worse; it could have ended up in third place. England could have failed to qualify for the second round. But to blame money, the media, the credit crunch for Labour’s defeat and then fail to face reality will be fatal for 2015. (more…)

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Mike Forster looks at the leadership contenders: David Miliband is Brazil.

12/06/2010, 04:59:11 PM

Much has been said on this site and others about communicating with our core constituency in a language they can understand. So thought I’d have a crack at explaining the second-most interesting contest going on at the moment in terms of the first.

True, there aren’t 32 contenders in the Labour leadership contest, but there are parallels with the world cup.

Whichever team wins the football, though, it is unlikely to have much of an impact on your life or anybody you know. Even England winning will only have a fleeting impact, mainly a stinking hangover on July 12th.

Our eventual choice of leader, though, could mean the difference between 5 years of a Tory government or 10, or even more. (more…)

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