Dear Ed: an open letter of congratulations to Ed Miliband

Dear all,

This is an email message, not a blog post (and still less a ‘blog’!), about a new blog post on Ephems, at http://www.barder.com/4473, “Dear Ed: an open letter of congratulations to Ed Miliband”. Perhaps provocatively, anyway counter-intuitively, I offer congratulations to Mr Miliband on several counts: on his and Labour’s success in outperforming the Conservatives in the election in terms of increases in votes cast (even taking the Scottish disaster into account) and even in the relative number of seats won from the Tories; on his increasingly recognised stature, dignity and authority, actually surpassing the prime minister in all three departments; and on his insightful and constructive contributions to Labour policies, including “predatory versus producer capitalism” and the priority of ordinary families’ well-being over deficit reduction.

I concede that on his own Ed Miliband couldn’t have buried the damaging and mendacious Tory myths about the New Labour governments’ responsibility for the banking crisis and their alleged over-spending, and recognise that had he tried harder to do so, he would now be blamed for having been backward-looking. I suggest that most of his would-be successors look like pygmies compared with him. My letter concludes: “No doubt I’ll be drenched in bemusement, disbelief, scorn and rage for writing this.  But facts are facts.   Congratulations, Ed, and thank you.”

The full text of my open letter, with the factual justifications for these unfashionable views, is at http://www.barder.com/4473. Please post your comments on the new blog post, whether supportive (anyone?), incredulous or outraged, at http://www.barder.com/4473, not please in reply to this email, unless they are purely personal.

Best wishes to all from a perfect summer’s day in south-west London —
Brian
7 June 2015