What to do about Ed

It’s hard to deny that the Labour Party is in trouble, despite the government’s unpopular cuts, failing economy and attack on the NHS the Labour Party are only marginally ahead of the Conservatives in the polls. In a time of government unpopularity the opposition should be streaking ahead in the polls, the reason that the Labour Party is not doing so can be put down to two points.

1.      People don’t trust them with the economy.

2.      Ed Miliband

For Labour to win, Ed must go

The reason for the lack of trust with the economy is because it was the Labour Party in power when the economic downturn began in 2007. This, the Labour Party cannot really change, but their leader, they can. Ed Miliband isn’t very popular with the general public, many in the centre view him as too left-wing for them. In attempt to seem more appealing to the centre he took a stance against many of the strikes that public sector workers participated in. This has caused problems as the Union movement is the base of Labour’s support and alienating your base is never a good idea. What is worse for the Labour Party is that there are whisperings that some of the biggest unions are threatening to end their alliance between them and Labour. This would have catastrophic results for Labour as the ending of the alliance would result in the end of the money that the unions give to Labour, considering that the unions make up around 86% of Labour’s income it is something that Ed must avoid at all costs. Labour needs to find a better leader; Ed isn’t particularly inspiring and doesn’t appear charismatic when you hear him on news programmes or at conferences. To be electable he must appeal to a broad range of people, the person I think best suited to this job is David Miliband, Ed’s older brother, and most people believed that it would be him that would receive the vote to become the party’s leader in 2010 but was narrowly beaten by Ed.

I hope, for Labour’s sake, that they get rid of Ed and replace him with someone who can go on to defeat the Conservatives at the next election.