Ed Milliband goes from strength to strength. He's now said that he's leading the party and taking the tough decisions and if people don't like that its tough. No Ed. If they don't like your meaningless decisions (in opposition) its tough for you and your party - because people won't vote for you!

Was the guy born stupid or has he just perfected the art?

Come on Labour, ditch the ineffectual clown whilst you still have a party left.

He's proving to be an idiot, it has to be said. Pressurising himself into the wrong decision if he wants to attract those who don't agree with current government policy

The more Milliband jnr waffles on, the more it becomes obvious that Labour don't actually want to win any election just yet, otherwise they would have fired him long ago.

I just can't see how anybody could seriously consider coming back to join the Labour fold as long as Milliband remains in charge....He is an embarrassment to the Labour Party and actually acheives the seemingly impossible of making David Cameron appear a half decent option as Prime Minister when compared to his opposition.

As there ever been a more uninspirational orator than Milliband???

Frank Spencer?

Major and Hague?

Cameron IMHO too

Not saying Miliband is any good, mind

I initially welcomed him as a better choice than his brother, an opinion I still believe is valid. However I cannot hide my disappointment in his tenure so far. This is a comment I made on the Indy website:

[iIt now is time for New Labour to sit down with the unions and seriously discuss the way forward. If Miliband is not receptive to his cash-cow, then let him and New Labour learn to live without the unions and their patronage.

Before doing that though, it would be stupid of New Labour to completely forget just how the real Labour Party came into being. I'm now in the autumn of my life but find I am apparently becoming ever more left-wing. I doubt my politics have actually changed that much, what has changed is the focus of the party I have supported since my teens.

The tories introduced "right to buy" as yet another tool to create wage-slaves. We now have a significant percentage of the population who, just like those in the 1940s & 1950s, cannot even dream of owning their own home unless something significant happens to realign the status quo.

Unfortunately I cannot see anyone or anything in New Labour that can address this problem. Realistically, they cannot because whoever we vote for would still be subject to the unelected dictats of the IMF, World Bank, WTO and big business.

Is this really the world that my father and his contemporaries fought for?[/i

If Labour cannot find it within themselves to fight for the low-paid and underprivileged in this country, then it is high time they took the moral high ground and refused all financial aid from those organisations that still continue this fight. It's also time that the trades union movement looked back a couple of decades and considered sponsoring people that would be willing to stand in parliamentary elections once more.

As I have argued on here for the last couple of years Labour has completely lost its way and represents no one other than the PLP. Their problem is that work patterns have changed and there's not enough traditional manual workers to get them elected. Accordingly, they do not represent those people and try to appeal to the same people in the middle that the Tories do. However, they do so in a way that does not offer a real alternative. Accordingly, they either need to become more radical or the party will cease to be. Personally, I would like the Unions to disaffiliate en masse and set up a new 'Labour' party with a clear constitution, appealing to say 1/3rd of the electorate to leave penniless old New Labour, the LibDems and Tories to scrap over the other 2/3rds of the electorate.

I wouldn't like to see the left vote fragmented in the way you describe, it'd be like 1979 when many Labour voters were attracted to the SDP, thereby splitting the left-of-centre vote and letting the Tories take power with a minority of the vote.

Thought the OP had won an award when I saw the title.

One could suggest that some on the right are concerned. After all, why else would the [iSunday Times[/i have commissioned a poll, the results of which were published last weekend, on whether or not Ed Milliband was good looking enough to be PM?

Hague has always been a good orator, he's one of the best speakers in the Commons and having been to a university event where he spoke to a crowd of mainly lefties, he certainly came across well and avoided having the patronising Tory attitude.

It wasn't his speaking abilities that let him down, more the fact that he was too young at the time, the Tories were a heavily discredited party and Blair was at his strongest, with a strong economy, so he was easily defeated. I think had Hague not been leader then, and been leader from 2005, the Tories would be a stronger party than they are now.

There were rumours at one time of him having another crack at the leadership but I get the feeling he wants to do other things in life now, he has a lot of business interests and wants to spend more time writing books, so I expect he will retire from politics before too long.

Dear god no, have we not learned anything from messrs Archer and Currie ?

He has the ability to waffle in a convincingly authoritative manner, providing you just listen and don't probe further.
When you read it again later, you realise that he said nothing.
I've lost count of the number of times that John Humphries has floored him on the [iToday[/i programme.
Over Libya and Egypt he was way out of his depth, hadn't a bloody clue about what was going on or what (if anything) to do about it, and kept ducking behind the "Ooh no, that's too secret to tell you" curtain.

I confess to having [url=http://www.amazon.co.uk/William-Wilberforce-Great-Anti-Slave-Campaigner/dp/0007228864/ref=tag_dpp_lp_edpp_ttl_ina William Hague book[/url. He is very good.

Geoffrey Howe Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

The thing was with those Tories who have been suggested, is that while they were dull to listen to, they did at least look like they carried some gravitas in their posture.

Milliband just looks and sounds like a jumped up prick.....His brother must be privately laughing his cock off at how hopeless Ed really is.