Splitter!

David Miliband is a crybaby. Just because he doesn’t win the leadership election, he proceeds to throw all of his toys out of the pram and refuses to be a member of the shadow cabinet. Even though I don’t like David’s ‘New Labour’ politics and was very happy to see him lose to his brother, I still would have liked to see some party unity; David received almost half the votes and could have rallied everyone to a unified cause if he had wholeheartedly placed his support behind Ed. But no, David has put his own ego before ideological success; and because the party is having a change in direction, he’s throwing a hissy fit until he gets his own way. What a child!

Congratulations To Democracy

Finally, something good to report. Ed Miliband has become the new leader of the Labour Party. It would have been disastrous if his big brother David had won the election as all three leaders of the main parties would have been virtually identical. But now we have a distinctly different leader in Ed; someone who is principled rather than consumed by spin. It's unfortunate that it took the trade unions to get him the job - if it had been left to party members or MPs they would have handed it to David, the Tony Blair wannabe - but at least the right result was achieved in the end. And even though Ed would never admit to this himself, I hope he throws New Labour in the dustbin and goes back to a time before Blair changed the whole concept of what the Labour Party was meant to stand for, i.e. the working class. Incidentally, the voting system used in this election was the Alternative Vote, so let's hope people take that into consideration next year when we get to decide in a referendum on our general electoral system; AV is much fairer than Proportional Representation. But that issue can be discussed another time; for now, well done Ed!