Goodbye to all that

Just a few days after Ed Miliband appears centre stage, his older brother exits stage right.

Let’s be honest the departure of David Miliband from frontline British politics was inevitable. At least it has been since Saturday when he lost the election for leadership of the Labour Party. Anyone observing the man who has carried the mantle of “future leader” of the party for over a decade as his defeat was made public will have seen grief behind the brave face. It was the face of a man who in that moment realised that not only had he lost the leadership but that it was going to be impossible for him to remain in the Shadow Cabinet. Not because of any policy differences he might have with his brother (which in truth are few in number) but because of the simple fact that he is better than is brother. He is a more experienced and polished politician – you just have to compare their performances on the conference platform on Monday (David) and Tuesday (Ed). He knows that as long as he is around, the predictable comparisons between the two siblings would not play in the favour of the new leader and having lived through the turbulent Blair/Brown relationship he understands just how distracting and destabilising that kind of tension can be. So this fine and clever man is bowing out. It is a great loss to the Labour Party and to British politics as a whole. On a human level, it is a tragedy.

But let us not forget that to a large extent David M is the author of his own demise. Over the past three and a half years, he had at least three opportunities to become leader and squandered them. And even if you give him credit for not challenging Brown (which some people do), then you have to question the campaign he ran over the summer. His team assumed he was going to win and acted accordingly. There were a few too many complaints from Shadow ministers and backbenchers about complacency, high-handedness and even arrogance. There is also a sense that just when Ed was going full steam ahead, David had taken his foot off the accelerator. He lost it. And so joins the ranks of the likes of Richard Crossman and Michael Heseltine who did not live up to their political potential. Indeed perhaps David is the Portillo of this generation.

Quelle connerie

I love France. I love the countryside. I love Paris. I love the food, the wine, the literature. I occasionally love the music (who can resist having a little bop to Joe le Taxi?). But I have to admit that the French can be dodgy. Well I say the French, but of course I don’t mean the entire populate of La Belle France. I suppose I am directing my accusations at the French establishment.

Only in France could they claim that the expulsion of Roma people (which has by the way been going on for over a year – sometimes as many as 1000 a month being deported to Romania and Bulgaria) was to preserve public order. President Sarkozy and his chums would have us believe that Roma camps were seething with all manner of criminal activity from prostitution and drug trafficking to organised begging and street crime and that there was nothing wrong with rounding up hundreds of people at a time, bunging them each €300 (€100 for a child) and bungling them on to a plane to Eastern Europe. And for over a year, they got away with it. The protests of human rights organisations which accused the French of deliberately targeting Roma people and breaching European freedom of movement legislation in order to shore up Nicolas’ falling poll ratings went largely unheard.

But, finally, they have been busted. We now have the evidence of a leaked a memo from the Minister of the Interior effectively confirming that Roma camps should be the target of police activity. This has finally prompted one of the angriest responses from an EU Commissioner that I have ever seen. Yesterday, Commissioner for Justice Viviane Reding gave France the full hairdryer treatment to France. Condemning the expulsions as a “disgrace ”, she declared that her “ This is a situation, I had thought Europe would not have to witness again after the second world war.” She is threatening the French with legal action which could result not just in very large fines but, especially for a country so enamored with the European project, the huge embarrassment that would go with it. Génial.

Burn baby burn

What a strange world this has become. The behaviour of an eccentric pastor has prompted intervention from the President of the USA, the US Secretaries of State and Defence Secretary and the Commander of USA and allied forces in Afghanistan. Yes Terry Jones (presumably not a Python) whose Florida flock numbers around 50, has provoked a storm around the world with his promise to burn copies of the Koran tomorrow, the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, in protest at plans to build an Islamic cultural centre near Ground Zero. I am far from clear whether Pastor Jones will carry out his stunt tomorrow – there appears to be a great deal of confusion. Earlier reports that he was cancelling because the plans to build the centre had apparently been shelved. However, it later emerged that the centre is still on, so he had put his protest on hold. It may well be that he has abandoned them again. Regardless of whether Korans are burnt or not, that fact that Obama, Clinton, Gates, and Petraeus have all become embroiled in Jones's nonsense illustrates perfectly the power of the 24-hour media in which we now live. Terry Jones’s medieval gesture has been given air-time and these leaders felt compelled to respond. Their audience was less citizens of the USA rather than the rest of the world, particularly the Muslim world; their message that the enemy is not Islam but bombers and terrorists. In the world before rolling news, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, communications advisers would have counselled against getting involved – “don’t give the crazies the oxygen of publicity,” they would say. And in those days they were right. But it would just take one of Terry’s zealots to upload footage of the conflagration from their video-phone to the internet, even responsible broadcasters feel obliged to cover it and suddenly people around the world are being persuaded to believe that the whole of the US was ablaze with burning Korans. So Obama, who has far better and more important things to be doing, is forced to get stuck in. Not a happy position to be in.

Tea is for drinking

Like many others, I am growing increasingly concerned about the rise of the Tea Party Movement in the USA. Tea parties have been the focus for grass roots Republican activity and have been taking place across the US over the past 18 months or so. They are informal, local gatherings bringing together those who oppose President Obama’s health, economic, environmental, well all his policies. I am a believer in democracy so why am I alarmed by the movement? Normally I would be welcoming the fact that it is engaging tens of thousands of people in politics even if I don’t agree with its policy positions. But this feels different. Listen to the language, feel the mood. It feels to me that there more than the hint of bigotry amongst the tea party-goers in spite of a recent attempt to hijack the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. I am also really uncomfortable about political movements that invoke God which is what prominent tea party champion and Fox News broadcaster Glenn Beck did at a rally in Washington on the anniversary of Dr King’s “I have a dream” speech”. I am pretty sure that if God does exist s/he would not endorse one party over another.

New Year, new job

So, here we are again in September and the start of a new year (well it is for anyone involved in education or politics). I always think it is a wonderful time of year, full of promise. Of course, it is sad to bid farewell to the long, heady days of summer but the thrill of the new year helps ease the pain. This year, I start the new term at a new company. On Monday I start at The Communication Group where I will be heading up the public affairs side of the business. It is a long established company with a great reputation and I am looking forward to joining the team. Naturally I am somewhat apprehensive - a whole new set of colleagues and clients to meet and know, new processes to get to grips with. And I know that I will really miss my old team and indeed my former clients but I am also incredibly excited at the prospect starting afresh. I just hope that the tea culture is not too different. Wouldn't it be terrible if they didn't enjoy a brew as much as I do?