Iain Dale Speaks Out !!

"Last week ( writes Top Blogger Dale)I wrote on Comment is free that David Miliband should run against Gordon Brown for the Labour leadership. Many commenters took their lead from Talleyrand and pondered "what did he mean by that"?

Jackie Ashley then wrote a column claiming that the reason Tories like me were "talking up" Miliband is because we look at the great clunking fist of Gordon Brown and we're frit. Not for the first time, Jackie Ashley was talking nonsense. She may have great insights into the Labour Party but her knowledge of how the Tory mind works seems to diminish with every passing month.

I wrote my column on Miliband with no agenda. Frankly, I couldn't care less who Labour elects. As long as the man who has trounced us Tories three times in a row is despatched I don't care who succeeds him. The truth is, people may not like Blair but they see him as a better prime minister than Gordon Brown or any other putative Labour successor. So the sooner Blair goes, the happier I, as a Tory, will be.

Anyway, back to the point of this article. Stories appeared in the press yesterday that the Conservatives have set up an "anti-Miliband unit". Acres of newsprint were devoted to this revelation. It shouldn't have merited an inch of space. All political parties have a political unit which examines the utterances of top level politicians in other parties. Someone inside the Conservative party may well have been deputed to draw up a dossier on Miliband - there would have been a dereliction of duty if they hadn't. But for this to become a major story shows how bereft of imagination many of our political reporters have become.

Let me make clear, given the choice of Brown or Miliband as Labour leader I'd take Brown every time. The British people have made up their minds about Gordon Brown. They don't like him and after last week's budget their respect for him has diminished too. If Miliband challenged him, it would draw him out and maybe we might actually have some proper debate about the future of both the Labour Party and the country. Miliband's "I-can" article in this week's New Statesman says more about the future than Gordon Brown has said in 10 years. If I were a Brown supporter I'd be worried about why my candidate couldn't articulate such thoughts as well."



Well Ian I cannot agree that Millipeded articulated anyting other than his transparent smarm but thankyou for clarifying that for us all !!