Playing at Politics
Dan Hodges is singularly unimpressed at Ed Miliband's trip all the way across the Atlantic for a quick word and photo opportunity with Barack Obama - strange the lengths politicians will go to in an attempt to make themselves look good.
MH17: Ed Miliband is more interested in taking a selfie with Obama than speaking for the dead
By Dan Hodges - The Telegraph
Photo: AP/PA
Later this afternoon the Prime Minister will rise amid a sombre House of Commons chamber to deliver the Government’s response to events in Ukraine. The reply would then traditionally be made by the Leader of the Opposition. But today it will be delivered by his deputy, Harriet Harman. Ed Miliband will be three and a half thousand miles away in Washington,trying to get his photo taken with Barack Obama.
Miliband’s efforts to bag a selfie with the President were first reported by the BBC’s Nick Robinson: “Sources on both sides of the Atlantic have told me that Ed Miliband has been lobbying hard for a meeting with President Obama,” he wrote on his blog ten days ago.
Back then Miliband’s attempts at diplo-tourism looked a bit embarrassing. Now they look positively boneheaded.
Why did Ed Miliband desperately seek his “brush past’ with Obama? So he could burnish his foreign policy credentials. Appear statesmanlike.
So what does he do? He goes Awol as the commons assembles to discuss the biggest European foreign policy crisis since the implosion of Yugoslavia.
“Ed, we’ve just heard that Cameron’s going to be delivering a statement on Ukraine. I think you need to be there.” “Bugger that. I’m not bothering with that foreign affairs rubbish. I’ve booked tickets to Washington. Harriet can do it.”
Miliband’s team will no doubt argue that pictures of him sitting next to Barack Obama will speak more to the nation than any number of warm words replying to Cameron. And they may be right – though if I were his team I’d be working on the basis that any image of Ed Miliband is a bad image.
But once again, Labour has demonstrated its inability to understand the difference between strategy and tactics. Maybe he will get his photo with Obama. But the message he’s just sent is: “I will do anything to get my photo taken with Barack Obama.”
These aren’t the actions of a grown-up politician. They’re the actions of a political dilettante. Or rather, they’re the actions of a politician who has surrounded himself with political dilettantes.
In reality there will have been few, if any, of Miliband’s aides arguing for him to cancel his trip to Washington. And why? Because it is also their trip to Washington.
This genuinely is the level at which Miliband’s office operates. They are not working in politics, they are playing at politics. “Courtiers” was how one shadow cabinet member described them to me. And there is no bigger court than the court of Obama.
So off they will go, stars in their own mini-episode of the West Wing. And while they do, the Prime Minister will stand up and talk calmly and maturely about his horror at events in Ukraine, and his determination to ensure that consequences flow from them.
They won’t of course. But it won’t matter. The gap between Cameron and Miliband over who people view as the most effective PM will widen once again.
There are things that Miliband could do to look more like the international statesman he aspires to be. He could lay out a foreign policy position or two. Maybe even give the odd speech on foreign affairs.
But then where’s the fun in that? Why spend a couple of hours droning on to the stuffed suits at Chatham House when you can be taking a stroll up Pennsylvania Avenue?
Harriet Harman will have to speak for the dead of MH17 in the commons chamber today. The Leader of the Opposition and his team have serious business to attend to.
