It's Ed's Fault

random thoughts on everything

Are you despairing? I wrote that a few days ago, not about another war in the Middle East but about another four years of Kier Starmer.

My answer was blame Ed Miliband. I can’t pin Iran’s nuclear ambitions on the man, but the moment this adenoidal geek fumbled his way into the political spotlight, British politics careered onto ice.

For anyone wanting a distraction from world affairs … what follows is not yet another commentary on Israel and Iran. It is instead, the tragicomic, and very British story of Ed.

Once upon a time … two brothers indulged in a sibling rivalry that led them both to the gates of Labour leadership. David, the elder and better looking brother, was a popular and polished Blairite. Ed, was the rumpled, lesser known, lost boy, and darling of the Unions. In a close finish it was Ed who emerged as the unlikely victor, he who went on to “rebrand capitalism.” In a campaign orchestrated by none other than pantomime dame, Sadiq Khan, Ed cheated the Party and the UK, of the better candidate. David the should-have-been-Prime-Minister, jetted off to New York where he had bagged himself a real, and well paid job. That was 2010, the start of the Arab Spring, the Haiti earthquake, eruption of a volcano in Iceland, the launch of Instagram and arrival of the iPad. It was also the year Ed stumbled out of the supplies cupboard to accidentally wreck British politics.

At best his leadership was hesitant, his foreign policy weak, his statements cautious, his Party split, economically as incompetent as his clownish ability to eat a bacon sandwich on live TV. With Palestinian flags appearing in Islington it was the beginning of a deep mistrust between Labour and the UK’s Jewish community. For the rest of the country there was an equal hum of disquiet. Ed’s brotherly betrayal was a scene worthy of Shakespeare, and it didn’t sit well with voters.

In 2015, following an abysmal election campaign, Ed’s bravado wilted beneath the dark clouds of Labour’s considerable defeat at the polls. He fell on his sword and resigned. Up from life’s sewer popped Jeremy Corbyn. A man of dubious Hamas and Hezbollah friendships, a shambolic unwashed style, Islamist sympathies, and a penchant for antisemitism. Under his leadership Labour lurched even further to the loony left and became a floundering hotbed of resignations and recrimination.

Ed’s inept leadership had freed another David from the coalition shackles of Nick Clegg. Amazed by his good luck, this David won a surprise majority and retained the keys to number 10 Downing Street. He probably danced through the famous rose garden as if he were Hugh Grant in Love Actually … but without the happy ending. Join the dots from 2010 … from the unlimited ambition, vanity and greed that surely prompted Ed to challenge his more suitable brother … and hey presto we were all subjected to the other Dave’s most brilliant of ideas … the Brexit referendum.

Somewhere in the sunny uplands of Manhattan, secreted in a glass tower, oh how Ed’s brother must have mourned over the sinking ship he would have steered far differently. How disappointing to watch Jeremy bully and alienate almost every Jewish MP in the Party. He lost voters, lost the press, and shocked the public. It was the Labour strongholds who voted us out of the EU. The pound fainted in distress, Teresa’s leather trousers replaced Dave, Boris’s bluster replaced Teresa, Liz’s fiscal disaster replaced Boris, Rishi’s Goldman Sachs credentials replaced Liz, and Kemi’s blunt delivery replaced Rishi.

So, thanks to Ed; all hail Kier Starmer. Inflexible, wooden, a wishy-washy middle-management pen-pusher. Aching to rejoin Europe, selling off bits of the UK, obsessed with human rights, terrified of Ange, grooming gangs, and hopelessly weak on the Middle East. His pre-rehearsed lines are a word salad, delivered in a grating robotic voice minus any sign of charisma.

Cartwheeling in Kier’s shadow to capture the wind, we now have Eco Avenger Ed, the re-imagined Marvel superhero that Hollywood never heard of. Our very own climate saviour, a zealous man who, in keeping with most of his Party, continuously fails to understand the voters wants, their patience, their needs and the size of their piggy banks.

But perhaps Ed does have more in common with Iran than I first thought. They’re both very keen on the nuclear option. One hopes to save us from climate change, the other hopes to change the climate for ever. Either way, happily ever after is looking more and more unlikely.