Pity Ed Balls. In this poignant and touching video, we see a much more vulnerable, special needs sort of Ed, away from the bruising anti-immigrant thug he often comes across as.
It’s such a relief to have this contest produce something interesting to write about though. So far there’s been something hopelessly naff and dull about the whole thing. I tried to watch Sky News’ Labour Leadership Debate which was helpfully waiting for me on Sky Anytime, but half way through I found myself deep in sleep.
Still, I saw half. Go me!
From what I have seen it’s obvious the gloss of New Labour’s early days is long gone. What’s left is a pale imitation of that slick election winning machine. There’s no real new ideas, no new faces, no new soundbites. It’s just the same old thing regurgitated ad nauseum with varying degrees of success at looking sincere and/or inspiring… but no matter what happens David Miliband is going to win because he’s the least challenging, the least upsetting, the least human and therefore the least awful.
No-one likes a politician with personality because that makes them unpredictable and therefore dangerous.
Cometh the hour, cometh the cyberprick. Fully programmable with nearly 5 different charismatic poses and trained by the same public speaking gurus that taught Tony Blair! Comes complete with army of pollsters and public opinion analysts in order to bleep-bloop-bleep his way into Number 10 lickidy-split!
Naturally everyone outside the Labour party is going to have to try very hard to be polite when they unveil their mechanised leader. “You want to make this guy the boss of us, do you?” we’ll ask and, all doe eyed and full of optimism and hope they’ll nod and grin and sigh and gasp. “Join us”, they’ll cry. “The Age Of Change is here!”
I know, cos I’ve been there. I’ve been that evangelical ding fawning over a robot, wondering why no-one else could see what I saw, thinking that they were being metaphorical with the ‘He’s a bloody robot!’ complaints. I apologise.
Anyway, back to the very special drumming. The role of a drummer is to keep the rhythm for a band, to bring everything together whilst remaining invisible. It’s leading, yes, but in a very sneaky, no-one-really-notices-you-exist-at-all sort of way. Unless you’re rubbish obviously, at which point everyone notices – and wants to kill you.
So, pretty ironic then, really? Yes, I think so. Ed Balls doesn’t stand a chance. An excess of personality has done for him, just as it’s done for Diane Abbott, the beautiful eyelash one and the slightly pudgy gormless looking one that’s apparently the second favourite, although in fairness he’s got the second least amount of visible personality. Sooo close to success in such an unthreatening, easy field… but not close enough.
We’re not even talking a lot of personality here, just a tiny trace of individuality, subtle variance away from the original Tony Blair model. This is the party of the collective, not the individual, the many not the few. Who else could win the hearts of Labourites more than someone with no individual personality of their own?
Sigh.
If Conservatives are afraid of David Miliband, I suspect it’s not so much his leadership they’re concerned about… it’s that he might electrocute someone when it rains.
