Union Influence Made Ed Miliband's Leadership Victory 'Illegitimate'

[You kip if you want to...]

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2011/09/11/ed-miliband-won-labour-le_n_957613.html

This ignores the fact that Ed won more raw votes anyway, but i'm sure it'll be good reading for the PM.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Bollocks. You might as well complain about the advantage David Miliband got amongst the MP section due to his status as frontrunner.

[afleitch]

Personally I think Labour's election rules are utter bollocks. Understandable bollocks, but bollocks none the less.

[You kip if you want to...]

The only other way I could think to do it would be to do it how the Tories do it, but have the popular vote round at the end being a 50/50 electoral college - members having half the weight, affiliates having the other. (Have the MPs vote under AV too.)

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The obvious solution is very simple: abolish the PLP section, but keep the current draconian ballot access requirements.

[RogueBeaver]

It's not illegitimate, but it did override both caucus and membership, plus picked the worse candidate.

[Insula Dei]

It's not illegitimate, but it did override both caucus and membership, plus picked the worse candidate.

I'm not too sure that David Miliband would have made a better leader. He was more tied to the Brown government and would have made 'Blame Brown' an easier game to play for the coalition. Also, what makes you think Ed has been such a bad leader? Fifteen months after an historic defeat Labour is consistently polling ahead of the Tories and well into the sort of terrain they had between the mid 1990's and 2003 or so. On the other hand Ed's 'disasterous leadership' seems to amount to one (admittedly) very poor interview. Also, isn't it rather ironical that it's 'Red Ed' who is failing to stand by the unions and their actions at this point in time? I'd say that the degree of Union influence over Ed M is quite a bit lower than certain media voices seem to think.

[You kip if you want to...]

It's not illegitimate, but it did override both caucus and membership, plus picked the worse candidate.

I'm not too sure that David Miliband would have made a better leader. He was more tied to the Brown government and would have made 'Blame Brown' an easier game to play for the coalition.

The same David Miliband who nearly challenged Brown like three times (albeit, he bottled it each time) and was Tony Blair's closest policy aide? Or Ed Miliband, who was Chancellor Brown's closest economic advisor and involved in plotting to get Blair out sooner-rather-than-later, with Balls and Douglas Alexander, within days of 7/7?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Both Milibands are very similar politically (they are essentially revisionist-right social democrats from the 1950s and 1960s who have just emerged from a time machine) although Ed is a little to the left of David (but not as much as David, stupidly, let him imply during the leadership election). Had David Miliband won, he would have had an easier ride during the first few months, but would have had a few more difficulties when the News of the Screws blew up. David is also a better public speaker than Ed (who's like a less aggressive version of his father, at least in terms of style), but would have had some far nastier internal Party stuff to deal with than Ed (Nick Brown especially. That could have been seriously messy). So it's a bit of a wash, really. I put E. Miliband 3rd and D. Miliband 4th on my ballot because I was slightly worried by all the telling little errors that D. Miliband made during the campaign.

Both are also far taller in real life than you'd think from the telly.

[Insula Dei]

It's not illegitimate, but it did override both caucus and membership, plus picked the worse candidate.

I'm not too sure that David Miliband would have made a better leader. He was more tied to the Brown government and would have made 'Blame Brown' an easier game to play for the coalition.

The same David Miliband who nearly challenged Brown like three times (albeit, he bottled it each time) and was Tony Blair's closest policy aide? Or Ed Miliband, who was Chancellor Brown's closest economic advisor and involved in plotting to get Blair out sooner-rather-than-later, with Balls and Douglas Alexander, within days of 7/7?

No, the same David Miliband who failed to challenge Brown 3 times and did have a much higher profile as Foreign Secretary than his little brother, (though to be fair I should have said 'the previous government' rather than 'the Brown government', I grant you that). Also, don't forget that Ed was much better at running away from the whole NewLabour thing than David. It's of course impossible to say what would have happened with David as leader, but where do you imagine a David-led Labour would be right now?

[You kip if you want to...]

It's not illegitimate, but it did override both caucus and membership, plus picked the worse candidate.

I'm not too sure that David Miliband would have made a better leader. He was more tied to the Brown government and would have made 'Blame Brown' an easier game to play for the coalition.

The same David Miliband who nearly challenged Brown like three times (albeit, he bottled it each time) and was Tony Blair's closest policy aide? Or Ed Miliband, who was Chancellor Brown's closest economic advisor and involved in plotting to get Blair out sooner-rather-than-later, with Balls and Douglas Alexander, within days of 7/7?

No, the same David Miliband who failed to challenge Brown 3 times and did have a much higher profile as Foreign Secretary than his little brother, (though to be fair I should have said 'the previous government' rather than 'the Brown government', I grant you that). Also, don't forget that Ed was much better at running away from the whole NewLabour thing than David. It's of course impossible to say what would have happened with David as leader, but where do you imagine a David-led Labour would be right now?

He'd look more Prime Ministerial than David Cameron and, therefore, Labour'd be more credible as a government - all those superficial presentation things that the electorate laps up would fit into place better, which is what matters when election time rolls round. Labour would've still lost Scotland either way and David would've struggled on phone hacking.

Ed's better at appealing to unhappy 2010 LibDems, but David's got more appeal to LabCon swing voters, which is what really matters.

[Silent Hunter]

If David Cameron was so good at appealing to swing voters; how come he missed the biggest electoral open goal in decades?

[You kip if you want to...]

If David Cameron was so good at appealing to swing voters; how come he missed the biggest electoral open goal in decades?

True, but he still won the most votes and seat and he's living in number 10 right now. You don't do that by being completely repulsive to swing voters.

[minionofmidas]

This ignores the fact that Ed won more raw votes anyway, but i'm sure it'll be good reading for the PM.

I had to look up what you meant by raw votes.
Did people who are both Labour and union members have two votes, btw? Or what college do they vote in?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Did people who are both Labour and union members have two votes, btw? Or what college do they vote in?

You can have as many votes as you're eligible to have in the Affiliates section, but only one vote as a Member. The same is true for members of the PLP. So the average MP had at least three votes (as a member of the PLP, as a Party Member and as a member of an Affiliate), for example.

[You kip if you want to...]

This ignores the fact that Ed won more raw votes anyway, but i'm sure it'll be good reading for the PM.

I had to look up what you meant by raw votes.

256 MPs and a few thousand members which David won, compared to large trade unions which Ed won.

[minionofmidas]

This ignores the fact that Ed won more raw votes anyway, but i'm sure it'll be good reading for the PM.

I had to look up what you meant by raw votes.

256 MPs and a few thousand members which David won, compared to large trade unions which Ed won.

Yes, I said "I had to look it up". If every vote is counted equally, Ed led from the first count.
But given the multiple votes issue... wouldn't people who held both Union and Labour membership be on average more likely to have voted for Ed than people who're solely Union members? Assuming the latter to be the "swingier" demographic?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I suspect that it's more that people who were also Union members were more likely to vote for Ed in the Members section, but it might well have cut the other way as well.

[minionofmidas]

I suspect that it's more that people who were also Union members were more likely to vote for Ed in the Members section, but it might well have cut the other way as well.

The first is a bit of a given, the second is highly iffy - if a lot of not-so-very-informed union members voted, and voted according to the leadership's endorsement (as the op article implies), then that would probably mean that it's not the case.
Basically, there's a genuine legitimacy issue if Ed Milliband only won because many of his supporters voted twice. If the second is also true, that's not unlikely (of course, he still would have won if MPs weren't given such a huge weight in the final ballot).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Basically, there's a genuine legitimacy issue if Ed Milliband only won because many of his supporters voted twice. If the second is also true, that's not unlikely (of course, he still would have won if MPs weren't given such a huge weight in the final ballot).

Ah, I see what you're getting at now. No, that's likely not an issue; Ed won because of his big leads with Unite and GMB members (25,661 with the former, 8,382 with the latter - which is also a much smaller union). It's also likely that the poor design of the ballot (there's a box that has to be ticked - a declaration of support for the Party essentially - that was put in a place that was less than obvious ) cost him tens of thousands of additional affiliate votes.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Of course, David Miliband would presumably have won had USDAW turnout been much higher than 4%.

Btw, Abbott won the Musicians Union and ASLEF (train drivers). Which is a delightfully amusing combination; are there any tuba playing train drivers?