The first time a Labour Leader chose his own Shadow Cabinet, rather than by election among the labour MPs themselves, we get an uninspiring Leader choosing a pretty uninspiring front bench!
Most would struggle to identify more than a handful of Ed Milband’s pick for his A team. The new faces are simply time served party apparatchiks who have known little else but politics since leaving college!
This is probably the weakest Shadow front bench we have ever seen and inspire little in the way of confidence just at the time when experience may be needed.
Labour leave parliament with the disaster for Ed Miliband at PMQs still reverberating in their ears, a disaster for them on Europe, and if that were not bad enough, Labour is now firmly behind in the latest opinion polls!
No sense of direction is apparent and Ed Miliband’s leadership is turning into a disaster in much the same way Michael Foots leadership was a huge mistake!
Ed Balls, in his announcement before this years autumn conference that he no longer had ambitions to lead the party, was interpreted by most, as firing the starting pistol for the race to replace Ed Miliband as leader. At least, it was an open invitation for plotting to commence.
Yvette Cooper, no wonder she has not taken her husbands name, it’s Balls! Is said to be in pole position and the favoured choice of those who judge these things, especially the MPs! She will have to assert her political independence though, if she is to remain front runner at the end.
Many other political political careers, currently on hold, will depend on Yvette’s success. Why is John Healey not in the Shadow Cabinet? Is a question I have now heard many times. Was it the result of pure political spite on Ed Miliband’s part, as some have suggested for the support he gave Ed Balls? Whatever the reason, the Shadow Cabinet is the poorer without him!
Rotherham Politics 
It is interesting that you should elude to the leadership of Micheal Foot when you talk about Ed Milliband. The Labour party put Micheal Foot in as leader to rid the party of the left, they did not want to win the election; purging the party was more important. They new Foot was a weak leader his defeat lead the way for new labour. I wonder if the agenda with Williband is the same?
LikeLike
I can remember the Foot leadership well. In fact I can remember Callaghan and Wilson too. Sad or what? But it does give me a much longer perspective of Labour Party history to inform my opinions.
I seem to recall that Foot was the only one who had a chance of keeping the Labour Party on the left! No one else could have held the ring until others had a chance to deal with it’s warring factions from both the right and left wings.
The Labour Party had simply become much too broad a church for everyone to be accommodated within it. The Social Democratic wing left of their own accord, the revolutionary socialists had to be helped on their way but finally, peace was restored. The rest we can all remember and will form the subject of endless debate for many years to come.
LikeLike