Thursday, November 6, 2014

Does Miliband's pickle leave Jackanory Jim with another dilemma?

As I'm sure David "Colonel Mustard" Cameron would tell you, there'll be no need for a Cluedo set to work out what has happened if Ed Miliband suddenly steps down over the next few weeks on the grounds of hay-fever.  The chances are it won't come to that, though - Labour notoriously lack the Tories' ruthlessness in dispensing with hopeless leaders.  Even in the winter/spring of 1983, when every piece of logic was screaming at them to replace Michael Foot with Denis Healey in time for the June election, they still held back and suffered the consequences.  And at least in those days there was an obvious replacement who could have restored their fortunes.  At the moment, Yvette Cooper is the very slight favourite to succeed Miliband, and in some ways she wouldn't be such a bad choice - but given her husband's ego, would she even be "allowed" to stand?

So my guess is that Miliband will cling on, and for the avoidance of doubt, that's something we should warmly welcome.  If Johann Lamont was a liability for Scottish Labour, Miliband is a liability-on-steroids - today's YouGov poll shows that people IN SCOTLAND prefer Cameron to Miliband by a margin of 31% to 15%.

But just supposing he does go.  One thing that has become clear over the last couple of weeks is that "Jackanory Jim" Murphy himself, Murphy's Tory-funded disciples such as Blair McDougall and Rob "I still have a mortgage to pay" Shorthouse, and Murphy's awestruck groupies in the media, see the current frontrunner for the Scottish Labour "leadership" as a Messiah-type figure who would be running for President of the United States if only he hadn't been born in the wrong continent.  So surely if a vacancy in the UK party leadership did occur, the only possible conclusion to draw is that Murphy would have a duty to forget about the piffling affairs of Scotland, and to "save" London Labour instead?  That would throw the Scottish leadership contest into absolute chaos.

It might be as well to have some "standby popcorn" to hand - you know, just in case.

8 comments:

  1. As much as I think that Murphy would be more at home leading Labour in Westminster than in Holyrood, I think it would be seen as just too opportunistic to pull a stunt like that. If I were going to bet on a (Somewhat) outsider, I'd have a go on Chuka Umanna myself.

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    1. Oh, I'm sure if he did it we'd go through the whole tedious choreography of Jim initially looking reluctant as colleagues in London beg him to stand in the "national interest".

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  2. Haha, that's a good point! Still, it would be great entertainment.

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  3. Of course murphy would go for it, its why he has gotten out if london....so he isnt killed by association with miliband

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  4. At the very least Murphy would back the Blairite candidate in the consequent election. If that candidate won, he would expect to improve his status and therefore wouldn't have to venture to the Westminster equivalent of Siberia...

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  5. The British establishment is resilient enough to contend with a prime minister who might be a non-conformist, a catholic or a jew, a homosexual, even a wummin, but I wonder if our democracy is yet mature and self assured enough to suffer a nephalist or a vegetarian, never mind both.

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    1. Well, there you go. I've learned a new word today.

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  6. Murphy stands for labour UK head honcho and wins, labour wins the next UK GE Murphy would become UK PM. Another Scot as PM UK. Not a snowballs chance in hell.

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