David Miliband: 'I believe the Tories are being economically inept: It's a masochism strategy'

What is that on his top lip? Has Mandy's tache come out of retirement?

I think he is contrite. Kicking himself about past failings and ready to move on.... let's see.

I'd be worried about a Miliband becoming Prime Minister.
What if someone hacked into it's software or forgot to charge it's batteries before an important conference, we'd be a laughing stock.
I'm all for the progressive option but are we really ready to elect an android, or Miliband, or whatever we are meant to call them now?
This is a step too far.

I don't think in 2015, people will see Iraq as the defining issue of the General Election. Whilst Milliband must answer questions on this, it was a Blair decision and as a member of the cabinet he towed the bosses line.

What is needed is a dialogue on how foreign policy is conducted in future and what his views as potential leader are.

PT: What are you most proud of?
DM: I think the shifting of the centre groud...

Sorry, but this fails the "normal bloke" test. He needs to phrase this in terms of people living longer or better educated kids, not movement on a flipchart.

@teaandchocolate: exactly. It's a bit Eroll Flynn, even Omar Sharif. I was just waiting for him to say something like "he's an awful cad you know".

'I believe the Tories are being economically inept:

Possibly. Early days.

Good to be cautious. Possibly better than taking 13 years to be and inherent part of something utterly disastrous, mind?

It's a masochism strategy'

As opposed to one based on self-interested sadism?

Have to enjoy being likened to Gordon Brown now being 'something worst enemies would not do'.

A real loss to diplomacy.

As to what follows...

David Miliband: 'I believe the Tories are being economically inept'

F*** me - talk about pots and kettles!

According to Labour itself, the Labour Party is near bankrupt. Just read this article: John Prescott: Labour 'on the verge of bankruptcy'.

Yet the very same people who are incapable of running the finances of a political party reckon they're such economic geniuses that they can run a whole country.

This is hubris: the very same people who created the system of banking regulation system that brought the whole of UK banking to its knees and sent the whole economy into recession now think they're qualified sort out the mess they created!

There was nothing economically inept about the Labour Party.

The ONS figures support that .

David Miliband is the one I would like to see at PMQ's with Cameron.

Cameron is shallow and poor on detail. Miliband is capable of holding a detailed brief in his head and expressing it clearly .

He is spot on with his comments about the Tory economic ineptitude ,their shredding of public services, their re-writing of politics ( to suit themselves ie parliamentary majority ) and their social unfairness.

He is also right about not going back to the labour politics which ended in heroic failure resulting in the dreadful Thatcher and Major years which left our public services so neglected....deja vu.

Funny stuff.

Did he back the war? Yes.

Did he spend the money we didn't have? Yes.

Did he support the blindly inept economic policies of Brown? Yes.

At what point does this bloke, or the G, think he can whitewash history?

No matter what happens int he next five years, Labour are out for a generation, I suggest you get over it.

Please David, just go away.

(Guardian, why are you giving this man and his brother so much time and column inches?)

According to Labour itself, the Labour Party is near bankrupt. Just read this article: John Prescott: Labour 'on the verge of bankruptcy'.

Yet the very same people who are incapable of running the finances of a political party reckon they're such economic geniuses that they can run a whole country.

This is hubris: the very same people who created the system of banking regulation system that brought the whole of UK banking to its knees and sent the whole economy into recession now think they're qualified sort out the mess they created!

Indeed! Labour should just wise up and stay quiet for the next 13 years. If they got everything ever so right then they would have won the general election outright, and would not be in the opposition seats now, with their party going bankrupt and bunch of little boys fighting over to play leader.

Oh Polly Polly Polly -He sounds just like Blair. ffs!

Pot, kettle.

- £23.000 of debt for every child born in Britain
- 111 tax rises from a government that promised no tax rises at all
- 100,000 million pounds taken from British pension funds
- The highest proportion of children living in workless households anywhere in Europe
- The number of pensioners living in poverty up by 100,000
- The lowest level of social mobility in the developed world
- One in six young people neither earning nor learning
- 5 million people on benefits (or 7.5mill)
- Missing the target of halving child poverty
- Child poverty rising in each of the last three years
- Cancer survival rates among the worst in Europe
- Hospital infections killing nearly three times as many people as are killed on our roads
- Falling from 4th to 13th in the world competitiveness league
- Falling from 8th to 24th in the world education rankings in maths
- Falling from 7th to 17th in the rankings in literacy
- 7 million people without an NHS dentist
- Small business taxes going up
- Business taxes raised from the lowest to among the highest in Europe
- The 10p tax rate abolished
- The claim to have ended boom and bust
- Our gold reserves sold for near a quarter of their worth
- One of the highest rates of family breakdown in Europe
- The ‘Golden Rule’ abandoned

He scores very highly on bullshit bingo. He drifts into meaningless management speak very easily, whilst his attempts to convey matey sincerity are undermined by the funny little caterpillar wriggling on his top lip.

Getting a Movember head-start on the last day of August is cheating in my book.

What a absolute clown.
Hes achieved nothing in his life, and knows nothing about working people.

Dont forget he was sabre rattleing ( wrongly ) with Russia, just to impress bush, palin and co , and show how tough he was ( stupid is a better word)

Miliband and palin in charge....the thought is frightening.

"Polly, Polly, Polly" - like watching a younger, even slightly more patronising version of Tony Blair...

"Getting back in the game"?! He might at least remember that when being interviewed for public viewing he's supposed to pretend he's in politics for the public good... Doh!

@dementedbear

Maybe because he's the favourite to become the new Labour leader?

"I believe the Tories are being economically inept"

Well Milipede Major you ought to know - you have more first hand experience of economic ineptitdue than most of us...

The Tories are being economically inept.

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Pot, kettle, black - for 13 years!

Tony Bliar, Gormless Bown, the Millibands and the rest of the shower would have been locked up in the Tower by now for crimes against humanity (the British public) if this country had any sense of justice.

I recall David Milliband being one of several Labour ministers who said, before the election, that not raising taxes would be 'taking money out of the economy'. He is no position to accuse anybody of being economically inept.

The Tories are being called inept because they are not following Labour's policies. The policies that have got us to where we are today!

They may very well be inept but for different reasons than Millibrand seems to think are valid. It is too soon to be able to say - it took Labour 13 years to show how inept they were, less than 4 months for this Government is not fair.

hacklesup

There was nothing economically inept about the Labour Party.

The ONS figures support that .

Which ones? The ones that show a fall in GDP per capita, the ones that show a rise in personal debt, the ones that show a tripling in house prices, the ones that show a fall in exports, or the ones that show a mind-boggling £3Tn of debt in the UK once PFI and pensions deficits are included?

I assume you meant other ONS figures.

David Miliband is the one I would like to see at PMQ's with Cameron.

Cameron is shallow and poor on detail. Miliband is capable of holding a detailed brief in his head and expressing it clearly .

He is spot on with his comments about the Tory economic ineptitude ,their shredding of public services, their re-writing of politics ( to suit themselves ie parliamentary majority ) and their social unfairness.

Which cuts are the Tories implementing that Labour would not have implemented?

He is also right about not going back to the labour politics which ended in heroic failure resulting in the dreadful Thatcher and Major years which left our public services so neglected....deja vu.

If Labour returns to its socialist roots they'll hold about 25% of the vote. If they stick with their NuLab they'll get around 35%. Miliband's a good socialist, he'll say whatever gets him in to power and worry about the consequences later.

He's got those Tony Blair hand movements which give lie to what comes out of his mouth.

He is far too slick and he has nothing to say about what he intends to do because he may not know.

As an individual who utterly despises the labour party I do hope D Milliband wins. He is a complete Blair clone and will always be tarnished with the ineptitude of the last shower. If Labour vote him in then they will get hammered in 2015. Having said that, there's little else to choose from. I'm afraid it's a Tory Government for the next ten years. Unlucky!!!!

What are we supposed to do when there's nobody left that's electable? Meh. Mini-Blair.

David Miliband: 'I believe the Tories are being economically inept

What Planet is David Miliband from? Although logically if his statement is correct why would anyone under 50 wish to invest time and their future in remaining in the UK?

Its alright for those who are part of the Labour Gravy patronage train who inhabit a World of protected employment/final salarly pensions but who is going to pay for it-the Colonies? Print more pieces of paper?

The Labour overdraft after 13 years of economic "competence" is £900 Billion.....and no UK Global World beater so far to take on the Titans of Google, Apple, Ebay, Twitter, Dell, or Facebook but at least we got WWTBAM and Big Brother....

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=1266742

'Economically inept'...........

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

This from a man who sat on his hands in cabinet while some of the most basic lessons in economics about the relative size of public sector (financially unproductive) to private sector (financially productive) were forgotten, ignored or just never understood.

A man, furthermore, whose commitment to one-eyed, we-know-best-even-though-we've-never-been-in-the-real-world wonkery was partly responsible for a torrent of ill thought-out, over-managed, inefficient policy initiatives which would die without anyone noticing.

A man, too, who had curiously little to say about the stunning failure to tackle inequality and ingrained poverty when he was in a position to do something.

Neither Milliband D nor his team have lost what makes them so fundamentally flawed - as anyone on the receiving end of a Milliband 'campaign supper' template will tell you.

Ghastly.

'I believe the Tories are being economically inept"

Makes a change from Labour being economically incompetent.

Polly Toynbee and an Labour ex-minister talking about macroeconomics...

...like two alcoholics discussing road safety.

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@newinusacom

What Planet is David Miliband from?

The late Carl Sagan theorised that gas giants like Jupiter might be home to atmospheric lifeforms that would, essentially, just be big bags of gas.

The description of a semi-sentient bag of hot-air leads me to believe that we might just have found a likely home-world for the Miliband species.

I still haven't got a clue what Michael Gove is, though.

The Tories are being economically inept - as oppossed to Nu Labour, which was inept at everything, except economically, where it was a bloody disaster. This man supported Blair in all his policies and carried on the same with Brown, until he realised Brown and Labour were on the way out and jumped ship.

Dear Guardian, I have been reading you for over 45 years, as you were the only true, liberal, left of centre newspaper around. Why all this fauning over the Millibands, especially by champagne "socialists" like Polly Toynbee? Please, getr back to the old alignment, not this one with Nu Labour!

He's doing the Bush-Blair hands-on-hips stance on the front page. Bad look. He'll have a mug in his hand next.

In the words of John McEnroe - he cannot be serious. I haven't laughed so much in ages.

I believe the Tories are being economically inept: It's a masochism strategy

Pot, Kettle.

Pick your poison:
The masochism strategy of the coalition, or the sadism strategy of Labour.

David Miliband is Tony Blair Mark II, only more boring. He talks, but is vacant, all sound bite, no substance, and he shows signs of classic Blairite hair splitting and dishonesty. His claim that he isn't the 'continuity candidate' (ie new Labour) as he isn't like Gordon Brown is laughable, conveniently forgeting the man before Brown.

He comes across as someone desperately trying to manufacture a gravitas he doesn't naturally hold. His experience and ideas simply don't match his high opinion of himself. I think Foreign Minister was a step too far for him, and as a PM he'd be a disaster. David Miliband is Education Secretary material, nothing more.

Funny bunch of tribalist remarks made here in reaction to the interview. If all political parties are the same why all the fuss about David Milliband.

Cameron and Clegg are Blair wanabees the very individual they continue to despise. Pretty much sums up the choices available.

David Milliband won't go away he will be on the shadow benches doing the job of the offical opposition and provide the challenge to the governments policy decisions something the Liberals are now to tarnished to do, because of their ever increasing toxic government.

He says he'd "obviously" not invade Iraq if he'd known there were no wmd. That doesn't go far enough I think. He'd do it all again if he were in the same position, that's what he's saying.

Pot kettle and black come to mind. Just a shameless little spiv, just like Ed The Mule. Cameron will eat him for breakfast. there is just TOO much baggage

Polly Toynbee and David Miliband discuss economic strategy...

Words fail me.

What next, Wayne Rooney and Rio Ferdinand discuss String Theory?

hacklesup
31 Aug 2010
There was nothing economically inept about the Labour Party.

Mervyn King
24 Jun 2009
"We came into [the banking] crisis with fiscal policy that was not sustainable,"

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Sigh. I really wish the Tory trolls could just control themselves whenever they see the name Polly Toynbee.
It's a real education in bigotry to read some of these comments.
Yes he's a bit Blair-lite.
Do I agree with him about the present government's economic policy; and do I wish he was PM rather than Cameron? Yes I do.
So shoot me.

Very interesting how you, you load of DM critics could float the wreck of the Titanic into the stratosphere on the hot air you produce. Obviously your Tories terrified of this guy becoming Labour leader and taking on Cameron.

Yes, he will become leader.

Yes, he will defeat Cameron in 2015.

And you know it.

And, you should all take an economics lesson. Let me spell it out for you, dimbos:

Labour was 'inept' only in allowing the banks to create the financial instruments that allowed their greed to all-but destroy the banking system and thereby the economy. Of course, they should have put in place restraints so that this should never have come about.

But the Conservative party in opposition wanted even more de-regulation. The same disaster would have occurred on their watch. And all sane observers agree that had this happened, they'd have been much slower than Brown to re-stablilse matters. So the idea that the Tory cuts are 'Labour cuts' is totally mendacious, or slight of hand at best.

Labour's Debt reduction strategy was working, you should all note, with growth and unemployment figures better than expected (even last week this was signalled), and weeks and weeks ago, Darling's forecast on the defecit being 13 billion quid on the plus side of the equation.

Only right wing economists are supporting the present government's defecit reduction strategy, and even then, not even all of them. Those in the centre and further left believe it to be demented, stupid, etc, and of course (nobel prize winner Krugman, Blanchflower, Hutton, et al) they're right. Those in the Tory Pary responsible for this travesty are completely mad and just as ignorant, believing in redundant economic nostrums that died in the 1940s! Exhuming this classical economics corpse is one of the most extraordinary political acts in my lifetime.

Back at David Miliband. Very smart, very direct, very open. Very next Prime Minister.

Suck on it, the lot of you.

RRR

Is this the kind of economical ineptitude that runs up record debt and has no idea on how to put that right?

Oh no, that's your sort. Moron.

roadriverrail
31 Aug 2010, 2:00PM

Obviously your Tories terrified of this guy becoming Labour leader and taking on Cameron.

Nice try, but most of DMs critics are from within the Labour movement.

Ed Miliband is far smarter, far more mature, far more prime minister material.

So you know what you can do with your Tony Blair Mk II...

"David Miliband, about his plans for the economy"

Oh the irony

"Well... I made a judgment. And - in the end - people have to decide whetherTheyThinkIMadeThe right judgment - orTheWrongJudgment... but I did it, because I thought it was the right thing to do"

Delivered with the same Blaireque mumbling joined-up-words-bit in the centre. All pauses and emphases at exactly the right point.

What's scary is how similar David M is to Blair.

What's tragic is the reality of how much more electable this will make him to the wider electorate as compared to the other four.

(I know it's not very helpful, but my own personal choice from this bunch of candidates would be 'none of the above')

@roaddriverrail:
Maybe not the tone I would have adopted but I am happy to agree with your analysis - at last, some honesty. But should it be Ed rather than David?

"Ed Miliband is far smarter, far more mature, far more prime minister material."

Ixus 31 August.

Is he? He's disguised it very well.