How can anyone who was ever considered for high office in Labour be so stupid as to say this?
Is he really saying Hollande is dangerous?
And if so, do we conclude he really has joined Goldman Sachs in attacking democracy?
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
He’s an unreconstructed Blairite (Tory Lite) so probably does consider anything with even the faintest whiff of socialism to be extremely dangerous. Let’s be grateful the party got the right Miliband.
Yes. We conclude that he is yet another Thatcherite entryist in a party that has too many Thatcherite entryists already.
Depends on the semantic intent of his quotation marks.
To attempt to be vaguely charitable towards him, he has put it in quote marks and I presume he’s referring to the headline about Hollande on the front of The Economist. But he is a Blairite prat, so anything’s possible.
I am not a fan of Miliband but I think he could be saying Hollande is not dangerous-as is all over the Telegraph today. But a Greek inability to elect a government could lead to disastrous consequences of the sort we see outlined on BBC news business websites with their limited options.
We DO need courageous politicians who can offer a clear alternative to the Goldman Sachs narrative. I have yet to see evidence that Ed Miliband is that person.
This is probably what he’s referring to:
http://www.economist.com/printedition/covers/2012-04-26/ap-e-eu-la-me-na-uk
Subsequently trashed even by the FT.
Indeed
But as I have noted, if I have read it wrong – and I see your point – so have the Guardian
That makes it unwise at best
It rather depends on the meaning of those inverted commas – whether DM is quoting a received opinion (from the Economics team at the Biased Broadcasting Corporation, mayhap?), or whether it’s his own view. FWIW, I think that it’s the former and that you are reading something into it that isn’t there.
I read it as saying that if we look at the what has happened in Greece – where at the moment it looks likely that no-one is going to be able to get a majority to govern, regardless of what their stance is towards austerity measures, and where parties at both political extremes are matching the centre parties vote for vote – the situation genuinely is dangerous. Anyone who puts Hollande’s election in the same basket as that is barking mad.
I may be wrong.
If I am the Guardian is too
They read it as I did
I am not a particular fan of D Miliband but I don’t understand how you can interpret his words in the way you do. The quotation marks around the word “dangerous” clearly suggest he does NOT think the election of Hollande is dangerous; if anything he appears to approve of Hollande’s election.
So who is being stupid?
I reiterate – I am far from alone in taking my interpretation
And it was, at the very least, unwise
Which was my point
The most charitable explanation is that he has been very careless. A career first, and highly improbable.
He seems to want to end up in Bliar’s position financially and is now looking for routes that don’t involve being prime minister. So publicly pre-echoing the “Goldman Sachs” view of the “little people” is probably just part of a long term game plan.
It was his capacity to push this kind of reactionary agenda which ensured that David Miliband lost the Labour leadership election (although only just) in 2010. He was pushing a Blairite continuity agenda and people just didn’t want it any more. On this basis we had a lucky escape.
I think it’s clear to anyone familiar with the use of “quotes” and/or twitter that he means exactly the opposite: that Hollande is not dangerous at all.
And I reiterate again – as someone familiar with Twitter – I disagree
But you are at liberty to differ
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/david-miliband-writes-for-the-mirror-why-im-823325