According to the dictum attributed to Edmund Burke, all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. Yet evil will triumph even more easily if good men help the evil-doers. In the Syrian civil war, with more than 80,000 dead and no end in sight, that is what the European Union has been doing, by upholding an arms embargo on the supply of weapons to all sides.
Recreating Old Labourism is not only the last thing Miliband has in mind, but would now be impossible, even if that were what he sought to achieve.
Len McCluskey, general secretary of Unite, has warned Ed Miliband of the need to keep Labour firmly on the left, in order to avoid defeat at the next general election. Specifically, Miliband has been advised by McCluskey to purge the shadow cabinet of its remaining Blairites, in the form of Jim Murphy, Douglas Alexander, and Liam Byrne.
Ed Miliband will today launch a highly personal attack on Alex Salmond by accusing the Scottish First Minister of practicing the kind of divisive politics pursued by Margaret Thatcher.
Francois Hollande’s popularity recently hit a record low for a French head of state, with a whopping 67 per cent of the French population disapproving of the President. The lesson from France should perhaps be that the most sensible thing to do in the current climate is to keep expectations low, or at any rate ensure they never approach anything like that generated in the run up to the election of Francois Hollande.
David Miliband has stepped down as MP for South Shields to work for an international aid charity, ending a twenty year career in politics.
In an event organised last night by the Board of Deputies, Labour leader Ed Miliband was asked by a member of the audience whether he is a Zionist. He replied, “Yes, I consider myself a supporter of Israel.” Ed Miliband wants to make the progressive case for Israel in the spirit of the late David Cairns. The Left should welcome that.
Left Foot Forward’s James Bloodworth takes on John O’Connell of the TaxPayer’s Alliance over the mansions tax.
Left Foot Forward makes the case for a mansion tax based on the fact that within the current council tax system the rich do not pay their fair share.
Richard Carr is a research fellow at the Labour History Research Unit As Ed Miliband’s ‘Mansion Tax’ speech proves, for perhaps the first time Harold Macmillan is in fashion right now. At first glance this is odd – in thetest
