It's been a long time since I maintained a blog. I did it for a while in 2006, during the last time I lived in New York. The main upshot of that experiment was a moving tribute to my dog, Leah, who died that spring, and an angry post about a boy I liked that, I later learned, popped up whenever his name was entered into Google's search engine. In any case, I stopped keeping up with the blog when I moved to London.
But I've got some time on my hands, and my friend Phil suggested I start a blog. And it would allow someone other than the stuffed animals on my couch to appreciate my insights, so I figured, what the hell? I mean, sure, future employers will probably use my posts against me, but let's face it - those who know me know that I'd say something impolitic at work sooner or later. Might as well get it out of the way.
I like to talk about public affairs, so I'm going to throw a few thoughts out here on Ed Miliband to start with, and see where we go in the following posts.
Ed Miliband is electable. Or at least, we've seen little evidence to suggest he isn't. He was elected by the unions, they say. So what? Are the 200,000 union members who voted in the leadership election a more or less representative sample of the British people than the 200,000 Tories who voted in that party's leadership election five years ago?
Is opposing the Con Dem plan for cuts really political suicide? I doubt it. It's been 75 years since Keynes - you can't argue there's a scholarly or learned consensus around cutting spending in a recession unless you kill all the Keynesians and burn all his books. More to the point, the Irish government already enacted plans similar to the coalition's, and their economy has now returned to recession. The only people who say the coalition's spending plans are indisputable, indubitable common sense are people who work for the coalition. (And the IMF, which is not a sacred and infallible oracle.)
What radical policies is Miliband pushing? A commission on high pay? That would only hurt Labour if people suddenly start loving bankers and their bonuses. A concern with income inequality? Hardly radical, or foreign to the coalition (or at least the Lib Dems). To rephrase my earlier point - the only people who think Ed Miliband is unelectable are those who have a vested interest in convincing the public of that fact. Take The Times. Today, it published an article saying Ed Miliband was a disaster for Labour because more people preferred David as a potential prime minister. Leaving aside the fact that most people barely know who Ed Miliband is yet, how does The Times explain the findings of the Guardian/ICM poll that gave Labour a 40-39 lead over the Tories? They can argue the bounce is down to publicity surrounding the conference, but that publicity would skew the Times poll as well.
One last thing: In my many, often depressing, years of watching American politics, I've discovered that the electorate generally disliked being told that they can't elect somebody, and then go on to elect precisely that person. That's why Scott Brown is in the U.S. Senate.
I'm also obsessed with Mad Men, and will blog about that often (and I download the episodes from the US, so spoiler warning). For this week, I've got to say: Don, fucking your latest secretary will not help you avoid prosecution for deserting the Army. Fucking a lawyer? Maybe.
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