Next leader of the Labour Party should be.....

[Gringo]

Who would have thought that Cameron would have made it to number 10?

well I did , so as my track record of picking PM's is pretty good I feel I'm qualified to comment on the merits (rather the lack of ) of the 5 candidates :-)

Dave was a prime candidate from before he made leader of the party - from his speeches at conference - the obvious choice for leader when cast against davis (if you wanted a tory govt). So putting political bias aside, not that unsurprising that one of the jockeys in a two horse race won.

[Gringo]

how will you be placing them 1-5

1 Ed M

2 Ed B

3 DM

4 AB

5 DA

1 Ed Miliband

2 Burnham

The other three.

Agree mainly - though I would like to see the big lady run the party for a couple of years just for the fun of it. Well if IDS can run the tory party, surely it's not too mad to consider an actual left winger (in words if not in deeds) running the labour party.

[Si.]

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

It'll be David Miliband but in all honesty they are as good/bad as eachother.

Blandest generation of politicians ever, no one (in any party) really stands up for something completely different and they all just fart about in the murky middle ground squabbling over this and that.

For once you would like to see a real leader, not another mindless puppet of the money men lurking in the shadows of the City.

[Ads]

I want Ed Miliband to win mainly because I can do a really good impression of him.

[Awol]

Andy Burnham attacks Miliband brothers in Labour leadership battle

Andy Burnham has turned on the front-runners in the Labour leadership battle, saying David and Ed Miliband are "elite" and lack real life experience.

The rival contender makes the accusation in an outspoken interview in The Sunday Telegraph, in which he warns his party that it must reconnect with ordinary people.

The former health secretary also launches a veiled attack on Ed Balls, the other main contender, for indulging in "depressing" and "demoralising" in-fighting.

Mr Burnham says the party needs a leader who is not tainted by the "factionalism" of the past when rival camps surrounding Tony Blair and Gordon Brown briefed against each other.

In a hard-hitting verdict on New Labour, he says his party was often "arrogant" and too fond of courting the elite.

"At its worst, it was self indulgent, arrogant, elitist, London-centric and all of that has to change. It looked hollow and rootless at times."

The warring between the Blair and Brown camps, he says, was "pure self-indulgence".

Making his pitch for the job, Mr Burnham says he was not part of either camp and adds: "I didn't have well connected parents. People are looking for politicians who have real life experience."

He argues that Labour should not be ruled by "whispers on the dinner party circuit".

Such comments will be seen as a coded reference to the Miliband brothers, whose late father was a leading Marxist and who are talked of as being part of the so-called 'Primrose Hill Gang' of north London Labour luminaries.

Mr Burnham's attack echoes the 2005 Tory leadership contest when David Davis played up his working class roots in contrast to the public school educated David Cameron, and made much of the fact that he was not part of the Notting Hill clique.

[snowychap]

I'm not sure that attacking (without naming) the other candidates is a great way to promote oneself for the job.

It's a bit of a shame as underneath some of his silly chip on the shoulder nonsense (I guess he didn't feel too comfortable when he was at Cambridge, then) I think there's some good stuff (hence why I put him above Miliband senior and Ed Bollocks).

[Demitri_C]

[drat01]

Pathetic

[Awol]

Pathetic

Better? :winkold:

[bickster]

Someone was saying the other day that there are no political heavyweights anymore (on any side of the house), no great orators, they are all a bunch of faceless, souless suits. Politics has become corporate. All of the Labour candidates for the leadership with the exception of Abbott come across that way. Shes no great orator either but at least she has an independent mind, thinks for herself and is prepared to g against the line, its a sad state of affairs though when the closest Labour have to a maverick is Dianne Abbott and she has to get her nomination papers signed by the other candidates to be even allowed a voice and the chance to stand.

[tonyh29]

no great orators

William Hague ?

[avfc89]

Pathetic

Typical Tory voters. No class.

[Gringo]

no great orators

William Hague ?

Nope.

jeremy clarkson is also a good after dinner speaker, and also has not produced speeches that have lit up the commons.

[Awol]

Pathetic

Typical Tory voters. No class.

[Gringo]

Pathetic

Typical Tory voters. No class.

Yeh because it's the first time that anyone has ever connected milliband the elder with bananas and monkeys - even in such stalwart papers as the gruaniad and indie the cartoonists have used such pseudolinks between millie and monkey.

And of course it was the tory voters comparing dubya to a chimp for the past decade.

[avfc89]

I thought we could have a genuine debate on this thread; obviously the Tory contingent on VT wouldn't like that to occur.

[Ads]

I cannot take a word Ed Miliband says seriously.

Neither will the party voters- it’ll be lil' Dave who'll win it.

[drat01]

I cannot take a word Ed Miliband says seriously.

Neither will the party voters- it’ll be lil' Dave who'll win it.

Why can't you take him seriously? - his appearance? - Oh dear if it is.

Interesting that the Tory contingent on VT are more preoccupied with the appearance - could that be why marketing people like Cameron and Clegg are now in charge?

Maybe we should be talking about Osborne and his uncanny resembalnce to a window licker, or Camerons and Clegg's massive foreheads. What about May's expression of appearing to have her industrial size dildo stuck up her, or Hague's appreance back in the days of Thatcher at the party political conference, surely that's worth adding to the debate? Gove and his lack of a chin?

All pathetic comments but if that is the level you want to play at then carry on

[Richard]

Pathetic

Typical Tory voters. No class.

Careful, some Tory voters used to be Labour voters and vice versa.

In addition I thought you socialists were all of the opinion that the trouble with Tories was that we enforced the class divide too much, how can that be if it is typical for a Tory to have no class?