I see Ed Miliband has made some sensible, dare I see leaderly, comments on the recent unrest - for example:
'The causes are not simple, they are complex... the Labour Party is not going to engage in simplistic explanations about this'.
What a shame he didn't say this before Harriet Harman waded in on Newsnight last week with her facile, holier than thou, party point scoring, tribal nonsense. I was so angry - so angry - that I ended up nodding along with Michael Gove (YES I KNOW!!!).
It's also worth watching if you like a dust up on Newsnight.
Later classic comment from Matthew d'Ancona on Newsnight, as rioters ran amock in Liverpool, Manchester, Leicester at al:
'what we want to know is that people are safe on the streets of London'.
Oh dear.
But I'm also far from satisfied with Newsnight's performance in giving Lib Dem's a voice, both last night (Lib Dem representation: zilch) and during the week as a whole.
Nick Clegg was the first major politician to visit the scenes of the riots. Lynn Featherstone was the 'duty minister' on Sunday when this had all kicked off.
Why - as usual - isn't Newsnight giving us a fair crack of the whip? Answers on a postcard.
And finally: here's a great piece from Zoe Williams of the Psychology of Looting. Everyone should read it.
oh I don't know, I've seen lots of news footage of Clegg being roundly jeered by the public on his tour of riot striken London.
ReplyDeletewell, quite - and very little of him spending lots of time in the areas affected seeing how he can help. rather specific BBC editing going on I'm afraid.
ReplyDelete" her facile, holier than thou, party point scoring, tribal nonsense. I was so angry "
ReplyDeleteSo you posted a facile, holier than thou, party point scoring, tribal nonsense blog post!
"holier than thou"
Sorry, but it is beyond irony that a libdem derides anybody for behaving in a "holier than thou" way. You guys default setting was holier than thou until 15 months ago - "it's time promises were kept" ring any bells?
I don't think you really read my piece properly did you? I ended up agreeing with Michael Gove. This is a very unusual and unsatisfactory state of affairs I can tell you - but at least demonstrates I wasn't playing party politics (unlike Ms Harman), a view endorsed this morning by her leader.
ReplyDeleteSo in my post I endorsed the views of members of the Labour and Tory frontbenches. No party point scoring there.
On the promises thing - we are implementing 75% of our manifesto following an election we didn't win. Not so dusty, really...
By the way, any chance of you voting for me in the Total politics Poll? .
ReplyDelete