swimming with sharks
I fully realise that dead Ed doesn’t need me adding to his woes, but, as a lifelong Labour supporter, there needs to be a certain heartfelt realisation and truthful admission: our Ed ain’t cutting it with Joe Public and there’s no chance of the poor man ever assuming power in the top role. I am absolutely convinced the next Labour prime minister will be a Miliband but it won’t be the younger one.
When the media isn’t merely ignoring him, it’s mockingly commenting on his geeky bacon-sandwich chomping face not connecting with the voting populace. Friends, colleagues and commentators ‘in the know’ all concede that when close-up & personal, Ed’s charming, witty, self-deprecating and surprisingly convincing, it’s just that he’s one of those people that doesn’t work on the silver screen. Outside of the personal touch, he lacks the one thing that today’s successful politicians need to have in spades: charisma.
It’s charisma that led Tony Blair to successive victories. It’s charisma that put Obama in the White House, and the lack of it ever since that’ll take him out. It’s charisma that allows David Cameron to spin his stories and convince us everything’s alright in his capable hands. It’s charisma that keeps Putin’s adversaries on their toes. It’s charisma that makes you overlook what your eyes are telling you when casting a glance at Angela Merkel. And Ed ain’t got it. It’s a pity our society is obsessed by something so irrelevant and something so shallow, but there we have it. Oh, how I yearn for a return to a time & place where honesty, courage, principles, beliefs and integrity counted above the superficial.
