2nd Most Right-wing Candidate Wins Labour Leadership!

It's started already. "Red Ed" the union's whipping boy is steering the Labour Party (LP) into the left-wing wilderness. If only. The viscous, uneducated, simplistic morons who write for the oligarchical press barons really don't get it. One wonders if they have any idea about the foundation of the LP or just how left wing it used to be.

First we need to tackle the misconception that will be used by the oiks who read the Daily Mail. It is true that David Miliband won a higher proportion of MP and LP member votes, and Ed won overwhelming trade union support. If it wasn't for the unions, Ed would have lost. But what is wrong with that? The LP was founded by the trade union movement. The unions fund the LP. If it wasn't for the unions this country wouldn't have a LP. The LP should be influenced more by the unions, not less. The LP should be the voice of the unions in Parliament.

And as for the voting system - I agree it is undemocratic and needs reforming. At the moment the votes of a few hundred MPs count for the same as several million trade union members. What is fair about that?

Ed is very far from being left wing. Not that any of the other candidates are shining beacons of socialism either. We had Diane - of course I wouldn't send my son to a private school now - Abbott, trying to sound left wing with talk of renationalising the railways. Ed Balls attempted some pretty low level Keynesian economics (and if that's all it takes to be left wing then Barak Obama must be a full on communist). Then there was dear Andy Burnham with his "aspirational socialism" whatever the hell that is. So the only real choice was Heir to Blair David, or Ed.

Now I'm trying to think of a left wing policy Ed has come up with. Some might point at the "graduate tax" - well a true left winger would abolish fees and pay for university out of general taxation (only £3bn a year as it goes). He talks of a banking tax when every Marxist knows that all banks should be nationalised - end of argument. Ed has also suggested a high pay commission to "look at high pay" - that's not exactly a policy is it?

What is in fact most interesting about these three policies is that they have all been policies of Vince Cable! So Ed is as left wing as the Lib-Dems. Scary stuff. Oh, and don't forget increasing the minimum wage to a "living wage". Even Boris Johnson supports that.

Ed Miliband is not a socialist. Ed is not left wing. He may well make some welcome left wing noises that will hopefully go some way to counter the Thatcherite policies of Cameron and Osbourne. But that is about all of us who are real left wingers can hope for.