Telegraph Miliband Paranoia

The tsunami of sneering and cat-calling from the right-wing boo boys this morning heralded the all too familiar Pavlovian response to a speech – plus Q&A – at London University’s Senate House by Mil The Younger. As usual, whatever he said was wrong. Heck, his very act of turning up to speak was clearly wrong. And this meant that Labour was deeply split and in terrible trouble.

He still isn't going anywhere, assembled hackery

How wrong Miliband was could be seen at the Telegraph, where the exodus of hacks who can actually string a few coherent sentences together means those whose abilities in this field are that little bit more shaky having to churn out rather more of the low-grade dross. This means the overtly slanted nature of the writing is so easy to pick apart as to be laughably deficient.

And Tel copy does not get more deficient and desperate than Ben Riley-Smith telling “Ed Miliband accused of paranoia as he blames 'vested interest' for Labour woes”. Apart from nobody accusing him of paranoia, and his not blaming “vested interests” (note correct plural, Ben) for any woes Labour might have, this is reasonably accurate – in that it shows the pre-ordained line.

Supporting the supposed “news” side of the paper is the Tel’s no-longer-Labour supporting blues artiste, Whingeing Dan Hodges, proclaiming “Ed Miliband speech reaction: ‘We now have a new definition of madness’”. Hodges, who is now quite brazenly calling himself a “journalist” – no, don’t laugh – fails to tell his readers that this is his personal opinion, for what it’s worth, which is not very much.

The truly desperate nature of the Tel’s cat-calling is underscored by other support acts, such as “Is Ed Miliband really Labour's worst ever leader? Could he really be worse than Michael Foot?” Tee hee hee! That was the silly old man in the donkey jacket! He must be really rubbish! Then the loathsome Toby Young’s summary of Milliband’s alleged “weirdness” from September is recycled as if it was new.

So just how close to reality is the Tel’s assertion that Labour’s poll ratings are “plummeting”? Well, not very close at all: while the formula pap is being churned out, YouGov, which maintains a daily poll for the Sun – although it often finds the results not to its liking, and so does not tell the readers – has revealed that Labour’s poll numbers, far from “plummeting”, are actually improving.

Yesterday, the Labour lead was one point. Today, after Miliband secured coverage across the TV networks throughout the previous day, it has increased to three points. The party that cannot break out from its less than satisfactory ratings is the Tories, and they face a drubbing in Rochester and Strood next week at the hands of Nigel “Thirsty” Farage and his fellow Kippers.

That is what is causing the paranoia, and it is the Telegraph that is paranoid.