The current leader of the Labour party is growing on me.
I know that this is a dangerous thing to allow to happen, and that all mainstream politicians are probably in fact callous moneygrubbing bastards. But I don't seem to be able to help it.
I mean, he's definitely developing a knack for calling Call Me Dave out on his crap. That's probably not a hard thing to do. But still, he's good at it.
From watching PMQs today, it hit me that Eddie M is not actually a horrible public speaker. At least not all the time. He's certainly got the hang of making his points heard in the Commons, and at least today he managed to do so without resorting to pointless populist soundbites. So, he could be much worse.
The main thing, though, is how extravagantly underestimated Milliband is. The standard reaction to his existence tends to be "oh, him, he's useless", or "I definitely couldn't see him as PM". But this seems to be for no reason other than his geeky face and nasally voice. Do we really think, as a voting population, that such things are a crystal-clear window into a person's soul?
The almost-unanimous rejection of any notion that Milliband may, actually, be a half-decent politician seems to me to be a symptom of just how shallow and populist our politics has become. The 2010 election pissed me off massively, just from the fact that Gordon Brown's startlingly evident intelligence and vastly superior economic experience seemed to be swept aside by the fact that Cameron was so much prettier than him. I mean, yeah, I know that's not the only reason Labour lost, and there were some genuinely decent reasons for voting Conservative. But if you think about it rationally for a second, there's sort of absolutely no reason that TV debates would be a good judge of who would make the best Prime Minister. Public speaking can't be more than 15% of the head of government's job. The rest is trying to work out coherent and effective ways of making the country better, something, incidentally, that Call Me Dave seems to be incredibly bad at.
So, yeah. I wouldn't necessarily vote for Milliband, but I think he's worth a lot more than what the media has decided.
I know that this is a dangerous thing to allow to happen, and that all mainstream politicians are probably in fact callous moneygrubbing bastards. But I don't seem to be able to help it.
I mean, he's definitely developing a knack for calling Call Me Dave out on his crap. That's probably not a hard thing to do. But still, he's good at it.
From watching PMQs today, it hit me that Eddie M is not actually a horrible public speaker. At least not all the time. He's certainly got the hang of making his points heard in the Commons, and at least today he managed to do so without resorting to pointless populist soundbites. So, he could be much worse.
The main thing, though, is how extravagantly underestimated Milliband is. The standard reaction to his existence tends to be "oh, him, he's useless", or "I definitely couldn't see him as PM". But this seems to be for no reason other than his geeky face and nasally voice. Do we really think, as a voting population, that such things are a crystal-clear window into a person's soul?
The almost-unanimous rejection of any notion that Milliband may, actually, be a half-decent politician seems to me to be a symptom of just how shallow and populist our politics has become. The 2010 election pissed me off massively, just from the fact that Gordon Brown's startlingly evident intelligence and vastly superior economic experience seemed to be swept aside by the fact that Cameron was so much prettier than him. I mean, yeah, I know that's not the only reason Labour lost, and there were some genuinely decent reasons for voting Conservative. But if you think about it rationally for a second, there's sort of absolutely no reason that TV debates would be a good judge of who would make the best Prime Minister. Public speaking can't be more than 15% of the head of government's job. The rest is trying to work out coherent and effective ways of making the country better, something, incidentally, that Call Me Dave seems to be incredibly bad at.
So, yeah. I wouldn't necessarily vote for Milliband, but I think he's worth a lot more than what the media has decided.
No comments:
Post a Comment