I honestly dont think it makes a difference who takes over now. If Brown does step down or is forced out, and someone else put into his place, they’ll have no option but to call a general election a.s.a.p. Whoever replaces Brown will be the shortest-serving PM in history, because Labour will lose that general election. If Ed is a good potential leader (not seen anything to suggest he could be) then perhaps it is better he bides his time and waits to become leader in opposition.

There is surely no way that Labour can have a contested leadership election following Brown’s defenestration – under the rules for such an election it would take months. If there is to be a change of leader it would have to be a Michael Howard style coronation, which would of course mean that Labour would have two consecutive Prime Ministers who had not even faced a internal party election.

Damned whichever way you turn, I’m afraid.

Him or Johnson.

Labour need to put a constitutional reform referendum — including PR — to the people before a general election.

Or we’ll get 5 years of elected dictatorship under Cameron.

I would also just like to point out that Harriet Harman is also untainted by all of the mess personally (although she’s been cannon fodder on TV to back the cabinet). Don’t necessarily draw any conclusions from that though…

Sunny,

Having not read this site regularly for some time, I wonder if you could remind me exactly what it is that Ed Milliband would represent that would be such a refreshing change from Brown’s agenda.

It seems to me that the thing the Labour party is short of is not leadership candidates but (in common with the Tories) ideas.

What is the challenge that Ed Milliband would be throwing down to British society?

Cabalamat

I don’t think much of Cameron either but if winning an election under the current system constitutes an “elected dictatorship” then isn’t that what we currently have under Labour?

@1: If Ed is a good potential leader (not seen anything to suggest he could be) then perhaps it is better he bides his time and waits to become leader in opposition.

It’s not obvious to me that Labour will be one of the two largest parties after a general election. The way things are going for them they could be headed for almost total wipeout.

@6: if winning an election under the current system constitutes an “elected dictatorship” then isn’t that what we currently have under Labour?

Yes, exactly. And that’s the fundamental reason why people are discontented with politics and angry at politicians. We need a new political system that’s truly democratic, that puts power where it belongs, with the people.

The new system would include PR, recall elections, citizens initiatives, etc.

@1:
Whoever replaces Brown will be the shortest-serving PM in history, because Labour will lose that general election.

But the blame for that will fall on Brown (and Blair), not any last-minute replacement (who will, instead, get the credit for saving seats which would almost certainly have been saved anyway as the poll figures grew closer, as they always do when elections become real). So any successor would be more than able to stay on as leader in Opposition until the subsequent general election – though Miliband has the advantage over Johnson, who’ll be 65 in 2014. And Labour could well win that election if it starts fighting it now.

If Ed is a good potential leader (not seen anything to suggest he could be) then perhaps it is better he bides his time and waits to become leader in opposition.

If Miliband were to take the iniative against Brown now (I don’t think he will, but if he did) he’d stand a good chance of winning. Whereas after the election, when there’s an open contest for the leadership, all the media focus will be on the likes of Purnell and t’other Miliband (or others whose taint by the expenses scandal will have been expunged by their re-election to Parliament).

The historic model here (although it took place in Opposition) is Clement Attlee. If Lansbury had stayed on for the 1935 general election, Attlee would not have been a candidate for the leadership afterwards. But Attlee got in at a time when there was no alternative (then because the other contenders weren’t in Parliament, in the current instance because they are caught-up in the expenses scandal). Even afterwards, the expectation was that a more heavy-weight contender would replace Attlee, but the party remained loyal to him.

@2:
There is surely no way that Labour can have a contested leadership election following Brown’s defenestration – under the rules for such an election it would take months.

I think it would take six weeks (as the contested deputy contest did). So, a new leader could be in place by the end of July, ready to call an election (and face honourable defeat) in October.

It’s not obvious to me that Labour will be one of the two largest parties after a general election. The way things are going for them they could be headed for almost total wipeout.

We can only hope!

Sunny: Do you mean an Ed Miliband/Johnson ‘ticket’ or a Ed Miliband v Alan Johnson deathmatch– sorry, proper leadership contest? Oh, and how are they going to offer ‘reform’ after being implicated for so long with New Labour?

Tim J: The Guardian reckon a couple of months while Parliament is in recess. Harman keeps the seat warm (as did Beckett when Smith died, when Labour was in Opposition) until either she wins (if she stands) or someone else is elected.

Who else loves the word defenestration?

I would have no objection to a PR referendum along with the GE.

Trying to get one done beforehand would be seen as – and indeed would be – a desperate attempt to avoid (deserved) obliteration. The risk then might be that it would not pass…

I know nothing whatever about Ed Milliband – does anyone? – I assume that’s a strength though.

I’m always baffled by people who complain that the Labour Party is not left-wing enough for them to join it or vote for it, but then back figures whose politics are (as far as I can see) pretty much identical to the current crop.

Sorry, Sunny, I don’t get it at all.

Ed Milliband, eh?

So can we expect the locus of power to finally shift from Islington to Primrose Hill?

I await further announcents on inheritance tax
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article484468.ece

As I said yesterday, do we have a government left?

My second thought after that one was that Sunny must be happy about her resignation.

Least worst says it all really.

I’m glad she’s gone. Hopefully deselection will follow and, seeing as I’m wishing, her being tarred and feathered and hounded through the streets. Finally ending up in summer season at Clacton Pier in a Crankies tribute act.

Labour are in real trouble, I think they will be wiped out in the EU/local elections and probably massively battered at the general.

I would say its a sad day, but it not. the sad day was when this lot of thatcherite, careerist, tory trojan horses took over Labour.

@14:
I’m always baffled by people who complain that the Labour Party is not left-wing enough for them to join it or vote for it, but then back figures whose politics are (as far as I can see) pretty much identical to the current crop.

It’s two things.

Firstly, it’s the hope that those frontbenchers who aren’t forthrightly part of the current crop, who aren’t always on hand to provide that piercingly on-message quote, are actually subsuming somewhat more left-wing convictions in the interest of party loyalty, and in the hopes of exerting some positive influence (in a way backbenchers usually can’t). I was going to explain why I still harboured hopes that this might be the case with David Miliband, but the article linked to @15 has depressed me.

Secondly, it’s the belief that though said candidate may be a true-believing member of the current ruling circle, they may be more open to debate. I know a lot of people thought that Brown would be less of a control-freak than Blair, so there would be more of a chance of getting progressive policies adopted through conference and the NPF (I believed it myself until seeing the lengths he was willing to go to to avoid a contested leadership election).

So, Ed Miliband may well be another Blairite/Brownite, but a less dogmatic one, a less totalitarian one, more open to compromise and consensus (particularly in Opposition) than the likes of Blair and Brown have been and Purnell or Flint are likely to be. Or maybe, just desperately maybe, those early experiences in Tony Benn’s office did rub off on him and he’s a secret socialist trying his best to send legislation in at least a marginally more progressive direction than it would be if everyone in Cabinet was totally on the right. Or this could all be rampant self-deception by people unwilling to give up on the Labour Party, unwilling to accept that the only standing hope for getting a progressive government at some point in our lifetimes has been comprehensively debased and simple disengage from Parliamentary politics accordingly.

It has to be Johnson for leader because he is the one the Tories most fear. Ed Miliband would make an extremely capable deputy in my view.

Time after time the British public has shown that it prefers a government somewhere near the “centre”.

Blair – with Brown’s help – brought Labour back to the centre, and made them electable for the first time in over 20 years – and subsequently winning three times.

You would be unwise to be thinking – great, now it’s back to the good old days of “old” Labour.
Be careful what you wish for.
In a contest between old Labour and old Tory the old Tories did rather better.
Between old Labour and new Tory it would be no contest whatever.

Of course if, from your perspective, you believe Labour achieved nothing, then you have nothing to lose…

I also love the term ‘defenestration’ but does anyone know the word for having a shoe thrown at them?

Anyway, the next leader will be some Kinnock type who will esentially spend his years in opposition trying to make the party electable before finally losing out to someone unconnected to the present shower.

@22 By that reckoning, whoever becomes the next Labour PM will be elected in the general election after the next – Blair/Brown became MPs in 1983, after Labour tried to win back power.

@13: I would have no objection to a PR referendum along with the GE.

If that happened the issue wouldn’t get debated properly. And i don’t think PR along is enough for proper constitutional reform.

Trying to get one done beforehand would be seen as – and indeed would be – a desperate attempt to avoid (deserved) obliteration. The risk then might be that it would not pass…

There is that possibility, true.

[22] does anyone know the word for having a shoe thrown at them?

I believe in certain parts of Mun-ches-ta it’s known as a ‘Fergie’.
http://www.metro.co.uk/sport/football/article.html?Revealed:_What_happened_when_Beckham_was_hit_by_a_boot_in_the_face&in_article_id=638192&in_page_id=43

@22:
Time after time the British public has shown that it prefers a government somewhere near the “centre”.

Labour wasn’t in the centre in the mid-40s or the mid-60s, nor the Tories under Thatcher. Elections aren’t won in the centre, they are won by certainty.

Blair – with Brown’s help – brought Labour back to the centre, and made them electable for the first time in over 20 years – and subsequently winning three times.

Labour was perfectly electable from 1987 onwards, and would arguably have won in 1992 if it had had a more competent leader (one who didn’t spend so much time initating fights within his own party, for instance). It would have won in 1997 even if it had brought back Michael Foot as leader. And it won in 2005 despite Blair and his policies, not because of them. The only election Blair can truly claim credit for is 2001, and even that had more to do with how ridiculous William Hague was.

In a contest between old Labour and old Tory the old Tories did rather better.

They certainly won more. But Labour effectively controlled the political agenda in this country, set the limits of political debate, from 1945 until 1987 (Thatcher remained at least reasonably limited in what she could do until that point). The long process of becoming New Labour involved ceding control of the agenda to the Tories, and even though the Conservative Party was comparatively weak from 1995 until 2005, it was a Conservative ideology that set the terms of debate. Personally, I have come to believe that it is more important to control the ground on which an election is fought than to actually win the election.

Between old Labour and new Tory it would be no contest whatever.

Oh I think that’s absolutely true. There is a widespread and growing appetite for radical change. Cameron will stick to the Thatcherite consensus so won’t satisfy that appetite. We are approaching the generational tipping-point where the old consensus ends and a new one is formed (as per 1905, 1945 and 1979). 2014 or 2019 will provide golden opportunities for Labour to be elected on a radical alternative to the current consensus, and so decide what the next consensus will be, to set the agenda for the next three or four decades. I don’t think it would have been entirely impossible for Blair and Brown to break the Thatcherite consensus, but such a break will become inevitable over the next five to ten years.

but such a break will become inevitable over the next five to ten years

I’m not sure about “inevitable”.

Two robots down. Now bring on Hoon.

@21

This “centrist” stuff is over-played.

When the two parties lack proper visions of the society that they would like to build, they both tend to pursue steady-as-she-goes policies based on the gradual economic growth and sound stewardship of the economy. Those with a different agenda can then be accused of destabilising the progress that is being made (insert inverted commas as applicable). Because these people are on the fringes of existing parties rather than parties in their own rights, the “centre” deprives them of a proper forum for debate and makes it difficult to put that point across. This makes it seem as though centrism is where the votes are.

However, Labour and the Tories have now pursued broadly similar policies for well over a decade and justified them on the grounds that they were centrist, pragmatic and in line with the evidence. As though the evidence could only be interpreted one way. However, as the global financial crisis is demonstrating – centrist or not, these policies were, in fact, equally benighted.

It was wrong to assume that finance could be the motor of the global economy. It was wrong to assume that colossal balance of trade deficits could be run up indefinitely. It was wrong to assume that growth could sensibly be underwritten by epic private debts and, having excluded house prices from measures of inflation, it was wrong to claim that the dragon of inflation was slain. It was strategically stupid to invade Iraq, financially dishonest to force public procurement into PFI and so on and so on ad infinitum.

And so we arrive at a place where nobody knows for certain what policies are the right ones for this uncertain new world – the evidence no longer exists.

The challenge for politicians is therefore to articulate a vision of the way they would like the world to be and then to come up with the policies to deliver it. That vision will have to be very different from the way we live today and so, by definition, it cannot be “centrist”.

The idea that Ed Miliband (or David Cameron) has such a vision is, frankly laughable. Politicians will rightly continue to be held in contempt until one of them comes up with such a vision.

Swopping Brown for Miliband would be like changing the Captain of the Titanic just before the last funnel disappeared from sight.

I want Straw to resign.

Remember, Snatch was ‘stabbed in the front’ by her own party – surely we are witnessing the death throe of tory-lite, as NuLab take down their leader?

Dear God, the Beeb is doing a running commentary on Blears’ movements. Are they expecting her to get off the train in Salford with the words “I have in my hand a piece of paper…”

Ed Miliband is, IMHO, the most talented of what’s left of Labour. But for this reason he should be protected from leadership.

Hague is by the far the most gifted modern parliamentarian, but he’s tainted by leading an already-ruined Tory party. Miliband should see the leadership as a poisoned chalice. At least AJ would have the respect and influence to unite Labour after an inevitable defeat – he also has the gravitas to command a slow rebuild.

Step forward John McFall

Untainted, clever, articulate, and very very good on the recession, where it comes from, and what to do about it.

Oh, and socialist.

And 103.

Just remember to go straight down to the polling station and vote BNP tomorrow.
The bugle calls from distant shires.

21. cjcjc. Good point, under Old Labour Kinnnock lost to Major. Attlee lost to Churchill in 1951. Basically people vote for te party who will give them the best opportunity to improve their lives. Once a party loses contact with the centre , they lose power be it Labour in 1979-1979 and Conservative from 1997 to date. The major issue for the next decade will be debt. It will be very difficult for Labour to explain the cuts which will be required, if they win the next election. I think the party who can best navigate Britain through the cuts needed in the age of austerity will win the election. Electing Frank Field would be the Tories nightmare.

Twelve months ago, David Miliband was projected as the next contender. That was before the banana moment and the political world joking about his etiquette faux pas on YouTube.

Today, Sunny is proposing brother Ed. Ed is an eloquent politician who appears to be a decent person. As secretary of state, he has delivered nothing that can be measured. As secretary of state for saving the world, what? He is a career politician who is so lazy that he hasn’t published anything that we can throw at him. If you don’t say anything, you are bullet proof.

Did Ralph Miliband have any other kids?

Ed Miliband – rabbit in the headlights trying to talk down an articulated lorry from thirty paces. He’s going to get squished, just like every other member of the headless chicken’s cabinet.

Ed M may be a little distracted, having become a father this week,

http://www.nextleft.org/2009/06/miliband-younger.html

Many congratulations to Ed Miliband and his partner Justine Thornton on the birth of their baby boy on Tuesday.

Their son is yet to be named. Senior Westminster insiders believe he could be a strong candidate for the Labour leadership contest of 2045, running on a red-green ticket.

@42: Their son is yet to be named. Senior Westminster insiders believe he could be a strong candidate for the Labour leadership contest of 2045, running on a red-green ticket.

Assuming there’s still a Labour Party.

Senior Westminster insiders believe he could be a strong candidate for the Labour leadership contest of 2045, running on a red-green ticket.

Very good!

36 year old leader, hell why not? Let the cult of youth prevail…go Georgina go!