Labour Conference 2013 Brighton
From Gracie Samuels
I have watched the leader of the Labour party, Ed Miliband carry out an impromptu street appearance In Brighton on Sky News as he arrived for the start of the Labour party conference. If there was any “residue” from his last public appearance when he was egged by an idiot in London’s East Street market, then it didn’t show here and he looked not the slightest bit bothered. In fact at the time of the egging a few weeks ago he ‘yoked’ and laughed with Sky’s Jon Craig and asked; “did you throw that”?
After Ed Miliband spoke, he took questions from the crowd mainly from ordinary shoppers who surprised to see him in their street had stopped to watch and listen to him. Unlike David Cameron at his “Cameron Direct” sessions Mr Miliband did not know what questions he was going to be asked and again unlike Cameron, he hadn’t been briefed and supplied with stat answers! He calmly and adroitly dealt with the questions as they came. Taking questions publicly is a political minefield for any politician because as we all know members of the public can be pretty unpredictable – and quite right too! I suspect that no matter how awkward the questions get, Ed Miliband wouldn’t have it any other way.
A member of the public asked if he thought Tony Blair was a war criminal (strong stuff). However he didn’t balk and gave a straight and honest answer. He said he didn’t think Blair was a war criminal and that he thought Tony Blair had made the decision in good faith, but he still believed it to be the wrong decision and we shouldn’t have gone to war in Iraq and that Labour had had to learn the lessons of Iraq which they have done, which is why he refused to back David Cameron’s decision to launch military action in Syria.
He dealt with a question from a homeless person which was pretty incoherent thankfully TV crews had the decency not to televise her as she was obviously distressed. Ed picked up on this and immediately sent one of his workers to to talk to her and try to help her.
Ed Miliband does plenty of these impromptu street visits apparently, not that we would know as they mainly go unreported by a hostile right wing Tory supporting press hellbent on keeping the public from learning who the real Ed Miliband is.
The Tory supporting right wing press have an agenda and it is a simple one, they want to keep Ed Miliband and Labour out of government at any cost. It really would not matter if Ed and Labour were absolutely perfect, the right wing press would still find ways to tarnish them and they will use just about every dirty trick in the book and more besides to bring about their aims.
The Damian “McWho – the hell cares” is a classic example of this. As we know timing is everything in politics so perhaps someone can explain this:
- First the long awaited Brooks and Coulson trials are suddenly deferred until 28th October after the Tories annual conference, (supposedly on a legal matter).
- Then the Daily Mail fills the void made by the absence of the Brooks and Coulson trials with the Damian McWho the hell cares book (which has obviously been specifically timed to be released at the beginning of the conference season).
The right wing press and the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties have vested interests in keeping the public from getting to know the real Ed Miliband, so they smear him and negatively spin against him at every opportunity.For Cameron and Clegg it’s political and for the newspapers it’s because they do not want to lose any of their power, they are terrified that if Ed Miliband became PM he would implement the Leveson recommendations in full, and after the despicable behaviour of the Sun and Daily Mail in particular, if Ed does become PM, I sincerely hope he does implement Leveson it will serve them right!
Thank you for this excellent article. The voice of the British people was listened to, and the country stepped back from the brink, as Labour politicians voted against intervention in Syria. We do learn from our mistakes. Ed Miliband is shaping up to be a decent Labour PM in waiting.
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Reblogged this on Britain Isn't Eating.
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