Pot Meets Kettle
Polly Toynbee is a 'cheerleader' for the Labour Party these days if you ask me, apparently willing to support any initiative no matter how daft or shallow.
Such as this one in which Polly tries to argue that Ed Miliband is a figure of substance while David Cameron is only interested in image and presentation.
But as I recall this is the same Ed Miliband who flew all the way to Washington last week (while the Westminster Parliament was sitting) for a phot opportunity at the White House with Barack Obama.
A case of the pot calling the kettle black.
Ed Miliband is challenging voters to choose between image and substance
The Labour leader may have a serious image problem, but he also has brains, ideas and strong policies
By Polly Toynbee - The Guardian
Ed Miliband said: 'I’m not from central casting. You can find people who are more square jawed, more chiselled, look less like Wallace.' Photograph: Danny Lawson/PA
It was high-risk, but Ed Miliband had no choice. Lagging miles behind in the polls as best leader, he knows that from now on things will get brutally personal. Expect no mercy as his voice, his face, his teeth, his style (or lack of it) will be the Tories’ weapons of choice. Does he look like a prime minister or does he look weird? The bacon sandwich was just an appetiser. Watch every Tory paper shove a camera up his nose, looking for the ugly shot.
Today he took the Ed problem head-on – and did it well: “I’m not from central casting. You can find people who are more square jawed, more chiselled, look less like Wallace.” He stuck many a deft stiletto into the “image-based politics” of Cameron, “someone who hangs out with a husky before the election and then says cut the green crap after it”. Do you value posturing or principle, he asked. Photo-op politics creates the cynicism that has voters complaining, “You’re all the same – you’re in it for yourself.”
He is challenging the voters themselves to stop and ask what they want: image or substance. Long words and serious ideas are sometimes better than soundbites.
He’s right: people are fickle and contrary: they say they want no-spin decency and sincerity, but then they judge politicians as if they were on The X Factor. But is it wise to confront them? It’s high time someone did.
Leadership is about “big ideas to change things”, “a sense of principle”, “sticking to beliefs and ideas even when it’s hard”; it’s to do with “decency and empathy to reach out to people from all backgrounds”. He says he will sometimes fall short of that gold standard, and admits that he did that with the soul-crushing picture of him holding up the Sun. That incident left even friends uncertain about whether he had the steely spine to preserve his own values in the buffeting of day-to-day Downing Street mayhem.
The Ed problem is serious. Inside the party there is puzzlement that he hasn’t improved his public performance in four years. His crucial clips on the news are neither pithy nor passionate. Plainly he’s untrainable, and what we see is what we will get on election day and after. Despite a comprehensive education, this earnest north London intellectual looks and feels no more normal than the Etonians on the other side. Cameron has the presentational sheen of his class, but neither of them can do the rare “one of us” of a Ken Clarke or an Alan Johnson, the gold dust of political communication. But in this wildly diverse society, the idea of “normal” is itself an artificial construct.
What he does have is brains, ideas and strong policies that flesh out the abstractions of “responsible capitalism” and “pre-distribution”. In themselves, the policies are popular: a million homes, raising the minimum wage towards a living wage, secure tenancies, letting the state compete to take back the railways, abolishing the bedroom tax, good vocational education, and standing up to vested interests such as the energy cartel.
“All of these are built of deep foundations, so ideas do matter,” he says. “Our political culture doesn’t appreciate them, but they change the world.”
If he wants to avoid presidential politics, Labour should do more to promote him as the leader of a sharp team that includes the qualities of Rachel Reeves and Andy Burnham.
The awful precedent for this full-frontal attempt to neutralise your negatives is Iain Duncan Smith’s squirm-making, frog-throated conference speech – “Do not underestimate the determination of a quiet man” – after which people said hush whenever he spoke. It projected him straight out of the leadership. But Ed Miliband’s speech was clever, honest, serious and a genuine reflection of his best qualities. It might just mark a similar turn in his fortunes – though upwards, not down, in public esteem.
It was high-risk, but Ed Miliband had no choice. Lagging miles behind in the polls as best leader, he knows that from now on things will get brutally personal. Expect no mercy as his voice, his face, his teeth, his style (or lack of it) will be the Tories’ weapons of choice. Does he look like a prime minister or does he look weird? The bacon sandwich was just an appetiser. Watch every Tory paper shove a camera up his nose, looking for the ugly shot.
Today he took the Ed problem head-on – and did it well: “I’m not from central casting. You can find people who are more square jawed, more chiselled, look less like Wallace.” He stuck many a deft stiletto into the “image-based politics” of Cameron, “someone who hangs out with a husky before the election and then says cut the green crap after it”. Do you value posturing or principle, he asked. Photo-op politics creates the cynicism that has voters complaining, “You’re all the same – you’re in it for yourself.”
He is challenging the voters themselves to stop and ask what they want: image or substance. Long words and serious ideas are sometimes better than soundbites.
He’s right: people are fickle and contrary: they say they want no-spin decency and sincerity, but then they judge politicians as if they were on The X Factor. But is it wise to confront them? It’s high time someone did.
Leadership is about “big ideas to change things”, “a sense of principle”, “sticking to beliefs and ideas even when it’s hard”; it’s to do with “decency and empathy to reach out to people from all backgrounds”. He says he will sometimes fall short of that gold standard, and admits that he did that with the soul-crushing picture of him holding up the Sun. That incident left even friends uncertain about whether he had the steely spine to preserve his own values in the buffeting of day-to-day Downing Street mayhem.
The Ed problem is serious. Inside the party there is puzzlement that he hasn’t improved his public performance in four years. His crucial clips on the news are neither pithy nor passionate. Plainly he’s untrainable, and what we see is what we will get on election day and after. Despite a comprehensive education, this earnest north London intellectual looks and feels no more normal than the Etonians on the other side. Cameron has the presentational sheen of his class, but neither of them can do the rare “one of us” of a Ken Clarke or an Alan Johnson, the gold dust of political communication. But in this wildly diverse society, the idea of “normal” is itself an artificial construct.
What he does have is brains, ideas and strong policies that flesh out the abstractions of “responsible capitalism” and “pre-distribution”. In themselves, the policies are popular: a million homes, raising the minimum wage towards a living wage, secure tenancies, letting the state compete to take back the railways, abolishing the bedroom tax, good vocational education, and standing up to vested interests such as the energy cartel.
“All of these are built of deep foundations, so ideas do matter,” he says. “Our political culture doesn’t appreciate them, but they change the world.”
If he wants to avoid presidential politics, Labour should do more to promote him as the leader of a sharp team that includes the qualities of Rachel Reeves and Andy Burnham.
The awful precedent for this full-frontal attempt to neutralise your negatives is Iain Duncan Smith’s squirm-making, frog-throated conference speech – “Do not underestimate the determination of a quiet man” – after which people said hush whenever he spoke. It projected him straight out of the leadership. But Ed Miliband’s speech was clever, honest, serious and a genuine reflection of his best qualities. It might just mark a similar turn in his fortunes – though upwards, not down, in public esteem.
