Ed the Unready
John Rentoul writing in The Independent had an interesting take on Ed Miliband's tendency to waffle interminably when faced with a straightforward question about what he did or didn't say about 'weaponising' the NHS.
Apparently this silly statement was made in front of not just Nick Robinson, the BBC's political editor but a whole gaggle of BBC executives.
By JOHN RENTOUL - The Independent
Daily catch-up: mock election posters, Ed the Unready, and a sorry business
And lots more that you should have read in yesterday’s Independent on Sunday if you haven’t already
1. Here is the poster by the ad agency Big Al’s Creative Emporium, which was asked to imagine how the Conservatives might make their final pitch for the election campaign in May. For The Independent on Sunday, my colleague Kunal Dutta asked five agencies to design posters for the five main Great Britain parties.
I thought Whistlejacket’s poster for the Liberal Democrats was good, but others found it obscure. See what you think. It will be interesting, after 7 May, to compare these with what the parties actually do.
2. Ed Miliband was on the Andrew Marr show yesterday. If you can’t bear to watch, you can read the transcript, all 5,600 words of Miliband not answering questions.
I said that “weaponise the NHS” quotation was going to be trouble for him, and so it proved. Miliband hadn’t prepared well, which is inexcusable. What else has an opposition leader to do except prepare for speeches and interviews? He must have thought it would come up, in which case he has to decide whether to admit using the word or to deny it. He said: “I don’t recall exactly what I said” (to Nick Robinson, the BBC political editor). This is no good because the next question was, of course, do you disown it?
Miliband didn't answer that and ended up saying: “I don’t think this is about the words we use.” As if his job is about anything else.
As David Mills pointed out, he should have said something like: “Damn right I said ‘weaponise’. What the Tories have done is scandalous. It deserves to hurt them politically.”
Daily catch-up: mock election posters, Ed the Unready, and a sorry business
And lots more that you should have read in yesterday’s Independent on Sunday if you haven’t already
1. Here is the poster by the ad agency Big Al’s Creative Emporium, which was asked to imagine how the Conservatives might make their final pitch for the election campaign in May. For The Independent on Sunday, my colleague Kunal Dutta asked five agencies to design posters for the five main Great Britain parties.
I thought Whistlejacket’s poster for the Liberal Democrats was good, but others found it obscure. See what you think. It will be interesting, after 7 May, to compare these with what the parties actually do.
2. Ed Miliband was on the Andrew Marr show yesterday. If you can’t bear to watch, you can read the transcript, all 5,600 words of Miliband not answering questions.
I said that “weaponise the NHS” quotation was going to be trouble for him, and so it proved. Miliband hadn’t prepared well, which is inexcusable. What else has an opposition leader to do except prepare for speeches and interviews? He must have thought it would come up, in which case he has to decide whether to admit using the word or to deny it. He said: “I don’t recall exactly what I said” (to Nick Robinson, the BBC political editor). This is no good because the next question was, of course, do you disown it?
Miliband didn't answer that and ended up saying: “I don’t think this is about the words we use.” As if his job is about anything else.
As David Mills pointed out, he should have said something like: “Damn right I said ‘weaponise’. What the Tories have done is scandalous. It deserves to hurt them politically.”
