Miliband Attack Turns Desperate

It’s almost predictable: the attacks, some of them, it has to be said, self-inflicted, upon Mil The Younger do seem to coincide with the Coalition, and in particular the Tories, once again fouling up Royally. So it has been with the latest barrage, which by pure chance came hard on the heels of the Rt Hon Gideon George Oliver Osborne, heir to the seventeenth Baronet, lying badly about the EU.

Yes, he's still there, RW press types

Yes, Osborne spins the budget adjustment payment so badly that he even disgusts Dan, Dan, the Oratory Man, the Tories face a rebellion in their efforts to appease the Daily Mail by renouncing the European Arrest Warrant, and Young Dave’s migration “promise” turns out to be anything but. So put all of those together, and what do you get? Simples. More “Disaster For Flailing Miliband”.

There are, so we are lead to believe, as many as twenty shadow ministers ready to call for a change of Labour leader. However, and here we encounter a significantly sized however, this news has come from a total of just three MPs, all of whom wish to remain anonymous. But they want everyone outside the party to know that they are loyal to Labour. Which is, of course, why they are shit-stirring.

So when Neil Kinnock expresses his disbelief at their behaviour, they protest long and loud (but still anonymously) that “Ed risks precipitating the eruption he wants to avoid through the cack-handed way his lieutenants are slagging off MPs who are deeply loyal to their party but can no longer ignore the damage his unpopularity causes on the doorstep”.

Sadly for them, as The Conversation has pointed out, that “unpopularity” is very clearly overblown. Labour’s poll ratings would not increase significantly if the party changed leader, and in the latest Populus poll is posting 36% support, 2% ahead of the Tories, with UKIP falling back a little. The real desperation is with those attacking the party, as witness Tom Newton Dunn of the Sun today.

The paper’s non-bullying political editor leapt on a “poll of polls” apparently showing a Tory lead, only to fail to check the numbers and later find out that it was wrong. The Sun isn’t the only desperate paper: the Mail splashed with “That’s how you do it with relish, Ed! George Osborne tucks into a hot dog at Wembley… showing bacon sandwich-loving Miliband he shouldn't bite off more than he can chew”.

Yes, the Tories are better than Labour because they eat their food more stylishly! There, leaking Labour MPs, is the real panic. And that is why your pals are so teed off with you. Stop whining about the leadership, and whenever anyone brings up the subject, just show them a summary of what Miliband has already achieved, and what he and the party are offering next May.

Don’t feed the 24-hour news Speculatron. Let it eat the Tories instead.