MPs call for Miliband sacking

dancrawford Thu Jul 31, 2008 at 03:42:38 PM GMT Print-friendly version Facebook

I personally wasn't sure what to make of David Miliband's Guardian article and then his press conference yesterday afternoon. Part of me wonders whether the media make too much of all this - especially given that the summer often turns up plenty of slow news days. They've got a few more headlines out of this one - with two Labour MPs calling for Miliband to be sacked.



The BBC is reporting that Geraldine Smith and Bob Marshall-Andrews want him to be sent back to the backbenches for effectively firing a warning shot to the Prime Minister. Much has been made of Miliband's article not containing a single mention of Gordon Brown and Geraldine Smith has responded with (to my mind, anyway) some harsh criticism.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's The World At One, Smith asked: "What has David Miliband ever achieved, apart from furthering his own career? If David Miliband was placed back on the backbenches, then I think he'd become the non-entity that he was before his accelerated promotion."

Marshall-Andrews reckons that Miliband's intervention was 'quite deliberate'. "The complete and conspicuous absence of mention of the prime minister at this particular stage obviously conveys its own message," he said. "It is a quite deliberate message but, as I say, it is a duplicitous message which is the worst possible kind of politics."


"I think [Brown] should sack him if he doesn't resign and mount a proper leadership challenge."

What do you good people think?



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MPs call for Miliband sacking | 19 comments (19 topical)

BMA (#1)

by David Boothroyd on Thu Jul 31, 2008 at 03:48:09 PM GMT

I'm absolutely speechless at hearing that Bob Marshall-Andrews wants someone else sacked for disloyalty to the Leader of the Labour Party.


Re: BMA (#2)

by snowflake5 on Thu Jul 31, 2008 at 04:01:23 PM GMT

Good ole Bob will take any chance to go on the news :-)

Actually a period of silence from everyone would be most welcome.


[ Parent ]

Re: BMA (#3)

by TonyH on Thu Jul 31, 2008 at 04:15:45 PM GMT

"Actually a period of silence from everyone would be most welcome."

Thank you Snowflake: “Sit down and shut up” eh?

Silence will demonstrate to the detractors that there’s nothing wrong? Having read your risible post on “let’s just be silent and graceful watching in anguish as we flitter away the last two years” I’m doubtful you should be calling on us for a period of silence.


[ Parent ]

Re: BMA (#7)

by snowflake5 on Thu Jul 31, 2008 at 04:45:22 PM GMT

It's a free country, so you've the right to think my opinion is "risible" if you wish.

But IMO thrashing about in a undignified blood-fest will do us more harm than good. Riling the country by lecturing them on how we can win, just makes the bile rise so much that we invite a thumping at the election.

I don't think it's helpful to trigger a leadership contest at the moment. I don't think it's helpful for backbenchers to call for Miliband's sacking, and I don't think it's helpful for people to rehash the Blair-Brown rivalry either.

Attention won't get focused on Conservatives and their policies while we are intent on hogging the limelight making a spectacle of ourselves. So yes, a period of silence and grace would be most helpful. Thanks in advance.


[ Parent ]

Re: BMA (#8)

by alexhilton on Thu Jul 31, 2008 at 04:46:08 PM GMT

I'm with David Boothroyd on this one


[ Parent ]

Re: BMA (#10)

by TonyH on Thu Jul 31, 2008 at 04:55:18 PM GMT

You may not "think it helpful" to trigger the leadership election but surely it is far more damaging to continue as we are.

You rightly point out that it is a free country so why are we not entitled to demand better given our circumstances?

We're not looking to undermine Brown because we don't like the cut of his suit or that we think him a bad person.
He's not doing the job properly and he's not satisfying even the slightest majority of this Party.

He has a case to answer and he's not doing it. He should go. I assure you the greater "spectacle" is our current trajectory.

Let our democratic process decide who should replace him. That would be helpful! 


[ Parent ]

Re: Backbenchers call for Miliband sacking (#4)

by Shirestory on Thu Jul 31, 2008 at 04:20:36 PM GMT

I'm torn on this one - as a Tory I want to see the back of the entire Labour government, and the only question is one of timing - as soon as possible, or leave them to fester until 2010 when the size of the overall Tory majority will in all likelihood by much larger?

Having said that, I'm appalled at how self-serving David Miliband is - I certainly don't think he has the integrity (or experience) to be a credible PM himself.  I listened to him giggling on Jeremy Vine's lunchtime R2 show and thought him monumentally foolish.  I think he should be sacked by the PM, and not just sacked, but have the Labour whip withdrawn as well.  Does the Labour constitution allow for that?  He couldn't very well be elected leader of the Party as an "independent" MP, could he?

I'm not sure


Re: Backbenchers call for Miliband sacking (#5)

by otware on Thu Jul 31, 2008 at 04:30:24 PM GMT

If Miliband were to have the whip withdrawn for what he said (not even mentioning Brown directly), then by rights with all the other purges the PLP would be reduced to a rump of pro-leadership MPs and those with such low profiles that nothing they say is picked up anyway...

So no, Miliband will not have the whip withdrawn.  


[ Parent ]

Re: Backbenchers call for Miliband sacking (#6)

by Tankist on Thu Jul 31, 2008 at 04:37:31 PM GMT

Having said that, I'm appalled at how self-serving David Miliband is - I certainly don't think he has the integrity (or experience) to be a credible PM himself.

ha ha ha

As opposed to David Cameron - a man whose experience stretches to running a TV company's PR department and advising Norman Lamont on which song to sing in the bath?


[ Parent ]

Re: Backbenchers call for Miliband sacking (#9)

by Shirestory on Thu Jul 31, 2008 at 04:53:06 PM GMT

Aye, David Cameron is also inexperienced - I wouldn't claim otherwise.  So's Nick Clegg.  There's a pretty ludicrous fashion for having our political leaders young and edgy.  Personally, I'd rather have a PM who been around the block a few times, and who had real experience of the workplace outside of politics. 

I didn't vote for David Cameron as the Tory leader - my vote went to someone else.


[ Parent ]

Re: Backbenchers call for Miliband sacking (#11)

by otware on Thu Jul 31, 2008 at 04:55:21 PM GMT

Good point. But then again, Blair had no experience in 1997 either did he? But I suppose he had been an MP for 14 years and a senior member of the shadow cabinet, which is more than you can say for Cameron.

And on the subject of integrity - what evidence has Dave ever shown of this? Everything he does from hugging hoodies to that pathetic arctic stunt with the huskies stinks of opportunism and a total vacuum of real ideas.

He has no policies, and is exceedingly lucky to have a sympathetic press, a lame duck PM and an electorate that hate Brown/Labour enough that they're willing to support him. 


[ Parent ]

Re: MPs call for Miliband sacking (#12)

by fluffymike on Thu Jul 31, 2008 at 06:42:13 PM GMT

Bob Marshall-Andrews calling for Miliband's sacking after 'disloyalty' to the leader? Surely not - though I guess BMA didn't have anything to be sacked from when he constantly knifed a certain TB!


Re: MPs call for Miliband sacking (#13)

by lulu on Thu Jul 31, 2008 at 10:14:19 PM GMT

Geraldine Smith and Bob Marshall Andrews are regarded with contempt by most of the PLP for the simple reason that they are a couple of media tarts who love nothing better than to be on the telly.

 

So today's outbursts won'r have done David Cameron any harm with at least one-third of the electoral college.


Re: MPs call for Miliband sacking (#15)

by doctordunc on Fri Aug 01, 2008 at 11:30:16 AM GMT

David Cameron?

(I fear you may have - in your freudian typo - stumbled onto a serious disadvantage with David Clegg, sorry Cameron, sorry Miliband.)

To be fair to both Geraldine Smith and Bob Marshall Andrews, having heard their statements on Newsnight last night, they don't appear to quite have said what's been reported.  They both seem to have spoken more along the lines of thinking Miliband should resign and contest the leadership rather than positioning himself from his current post.  Which, if he is making a bid for the leadership (and he's been terribly bad at denying it!!!) is not necessarily bad advice.


[ Parent ]

Re: MPs call for Miliband sacking (#16)

by dancrawford on Fri Aug 01, 2008 at 11:39:35 AM GMT

I've only seen one clip of Smith (the same one that was on BBC News and Newsnight), but Marshall-Andrews has said - to at least two different interviewers that I've seen - that if Miliband doesn't step down he should be sacked.

Personally, I think the cheek of it is astonishing. I don't remember Smith or BMA being particularly loyal to the last Labour leader.


[ Parent ]

Re: MPs call for Miliband sacking (#18)

by lulu on Fri Aug 01, 2008 at 09:36:35 PM GMT

If it was a Freudian slip it was because these two MPs - one from the hard right of the PLP and one from the hard left - normally calibrate their comments in such a way that they do indeed help David Cameron.


[ Parent ]

Re: MPs call for Miliband sacking (#14)

by NorthernMonkey on Fri Aug 01, 2008 at 08:32:27 AM GMT

Tony Blair should have sacked Gordon Brown whilst he had the chance for his continuous self-serving disloyalty and backstabbing.

I think a "period of silence" from the likes of Geraldine Smith and Bob Marshall-Andrews certainly would be most welcome.


Re: MPs call for Miliband sacking (#19)

by jkitleft on Sat Aug 02, 2008 at 02:44:53 AM GMT

The way he backstabbed people like Mo Mowlam, Robin Cook and Ken Livingstone was awful too.

The way he promoted himself as Old Labour was fraudulant. Blair was certainly more 'Old Labour' on the disasterous PFI for the Tubes. And Blair was more of a latte European liberal, than the Atlanticist Brown.

I think Blair was held back from being a radical, by Brown. Good to see his dithering traits continue. If Brown had been shunted to a less powerful department, I think Blair would have gone for the Euro referendum in the second term. His 2001 conference speech about how we could reshape the world in a progressive way was his best ever speech, imho. Had he made the second term about the Euro, the shape of international politics could be very different. Blair would have been driven more towards Europe than America, in the 2002 Iraq build-up. It could have signalled a new era of Europe being on the world stage, and using more social democratic means of tackling tyranny, ending unfair trade, starting non-proliferation, tackling climate change, and finding peace in Israel.

Similarly, Brown and others helped scupper co-operation with the Lib Dems. And PR. Brown often vetoed decent policies just to show he could.


[ Parent ]

Re: MPs call for Miliband sacking (#17)

by NB on Fri Aug 01, 2008 at 07:18:55 PM GMT

Gordon couldn't sack Miliband even if he could summon up the courage to do so. He is too weak politically. And if he threatend to move Miliband, Milband could answer the way Brown and his team habitually answered Blair.

Morals:

  1. What goes around, comes around.
  2. Be nice to people on your way up.
  3. If you have no talent for charm, and fundamentally don't like other people, don't go into politics. 


MPs call for Miliband sacking | 19 comments (19 topical)