Second quote of the day

On my 2013 trip to Brighton to listen to Ed Miliband, I was surprised he did not do more to reassure voters about the economy, welfare and immigration.

As I write this, the party is back at the seaside listening to its new anti-capitalist shadow chancellor set out his plans for higher taxes, and looking forward to hearing the leader the Sun has concisely christened “Mad Jezza”.

Two years ago, I concluded that Ed Miliband thought he could win with the support he already had. The question now is whether the Corbynists don’t realise they are electorally doomed, or whether they don’t care. (At least, after 1997, the debate in the Conservative Party was over how to win again.)

(Lord Ashcroft, writing this week in the New Statesman)

Comments

Jim said…
2013, is that the one where not only did Ed fail to reassure voters on the deficit, he forgot about himself. The most pressing thing on the nation, and he plain "forgot" about it. That one?
Chris Whiteside said…
That was 2014, IIRC.

2013 was the year it became obvious Miliband was following a 35% strategy - make sure the Labour vote turned out and he thought he could win because half the 2010 Lib Dems would vote Labour and five percentage points of the 2010 Conservatives would vote UKIP.

I recall thinking and writing at the time that I hoped and thought the electorate would not be stupid enough to let that happen - and you accurately predicted that they would not - but I will own up to having been very nervous about it.

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