Ed Milliband and his "lack of personality" politics

Ed Milliband and Wallace.  A better brother than David, to be fair.

Increasingly, it seems, personality is dominating politics.  Especially the world of mainstream politics.  But then, this shouldn't be surprising.  Deciding on who to vote for in elections should come down to differences in policy, differences in the ideological outlook of the party in question.  But there doesn't seem to be any difference.

Living is tough, and it's felt like this for years now.  There are no leading political figures who are coming up with an alternative. Not even the suggestion of one.  As such, it's hardly surprising that when we decide which political party to vote for that personality is where we start.

In these depressing terms Ed Milliband is currently losing amongst the leaders of the three main parties.  According to official YouGov polls he's even less popular than Nick Clegg.  That's like finding out your girlfriend is dumping you for Julien Blanc!

The Sun, along with the rest of the right wing press, enjoy making as many disparaging comments about Ed Milliband's appearance as they can.  One repeated aspect has been to compare him to Wallace.

In many ways of course this is a weak argument as Wallace appears to be far more human like in his appearance.  Also, Ed Milliband would kill to have even just an inch of Wallace's likeability.

The next obvious thing for columnists and political cartoonists to employ would be to compare anyone close to him as being like Gromit, Wallace's faithful hound.  Except for this comparison to work you would need someone, anyone, to openly ally themselves to Ed Milliband in the first place.

Instead, the bulk of the Labour movement appear to be distancing themselves from him as much as possible.  Almost like being unpopular is a disease you can get from close contact.

There are indeed many who would prefer Ed Balls to replace Ed Milliband as leader.  A bizarre concept if you are just looking at personality as he doesn't exactly exude a winning confidence.  Also, as immature as it is... he's called Balls.  I mean, come on...

Of course personality shouldn't be the issue.  I'm adding to the criticism here as well, I know that.  But the problem is, he doesn't give us anything else to go on.

Compared to all the other leaders, he doesn't say anything different.  Austerity is necessary, immigration is a problem, we all need to tighten our belts.  It's the same script that all the other leaders are reading from.

When you realise that, why not decide on who to vote for according to the colour of their tie or how good they look eating a sandwich?

Ed Millband eating a bacon sandwich.  Erm... that's it.

In fact, at the next election, the ballot paper should have the names of the parties represented removed and simply comprise of pictures of the different nominees eating sandwiches.  Sounds glib, but if it was actually a beauty contest at least Nigel Farage would miss out!

Only 4 years ago, it actually looked different.  In the Labour Party leadership election we had various options.  The favourite choice was David Milliband, who represented a continuation of Blairite politics.  Nice suit, nice smile, business as usual.  Privatisation and genocide, hand in hand, just like his old boss.

On the left was Diane Abbott.  Essentially there for the sake of it, but that being no bad thing.  If she could help drag the argument to the left, all the better.  Any socialist with a vote knew she had no chance, but was glad she was there.

Then came Ed Milliband.  Not a left winger, nor had he really played a prominent role previously.  But he stood out.

At every election when a party suffers a set back prominent members interviewed speak of the need to "listen to the voters, and learn from our mistakes".  The mistakes are never actually openly declared, and as such nothing is learnt and the voters are ignored.

However, during the Labour Party leadership Ed Milliband said that the Labour party had made a number of mistakes, such as the Iraq War.  Wow!

Yes, it's the bleeding obvious, but from a candidate that actually stood a chance of winning, this was amazing.  Faced with the prospect that maybe real change could happen within the Labour Party, it is hardly surprising that ordinary members and Trade Union members (who also had the right to vote in the election if their Union was affiliated to the Labour Party) flocked to him.

Now, 4 years later, it of course turned out to be a lot of smoke.  Now he sticks to the script, and has nothing to say for himself.  Tired, boring and pointless.  His comparison to an animated work of fiction is by far the most interesting aspect of his existence.

We deserve better than this.  At the next election I, along with many others, will vote for Labour.  We always do, and we have to hold our noses as we do it, but we know that even now there is a difference between Labour and the Tories.  Paper thin though it may be.

Working people - the alternative to Dave, Nick and Ed

If there is anything to learn from mainstream politics as it now stands it's that if nothing else, the solution will not come from elections.  The system itself is utterly corrupt, and the parties available only want to slightly tweak it.

It needs changing.  Utterly and fundamentally.  Grass roots campaigning, active Trade Union membership, there are other alternative forms of democracy.  It's not enough just to get angry, but it's a start.  If we accept it the way it is, we leave all the big decisions to whoever has received the most effective media training in how to eat their dinner.