Politik: Wallace & Gromit styr Labour!

MEDIA | Det bådar illa för Labour att deras partiledare karikeras på nästan identiskt sätt av två konkurrerande nyhetsmagasin.

Både den konservativa tidskriften The Spectator och den till Labour närstående New Statesman har använt figurerna Wallace & Gromit för att ifrågasätta Ed Milibands ledarskap.

Detta är lite märkligt med tanke på att Labour, precis som Socialdemokraterna i Sverige, alltid har en hyfsad ledning i opinionsundersökningarna.

Men till skillnad från Stefan Löfven är Ed Miliband inte lika respekterad, vare sig bland opinionsbildare eller bland politiska motståndare.

Och även inom det egna partiet är det mer än en som tvekar om han är rätt person att leverera en valseger över David Camerons regeringskoalitionen.

Men James Forsyth, politisk redaktör på The Spectator, påpekar att även om Miliband är mer hånad än fruktad gör motståndare ett misstag om man undervärderar Miliband.

A Tory MP bobbed up at Prime Minister’s Questions recently to ask David Cameron whether he was ‘aware that 4 per cent of people believe that Elvis is still alive? That is double the number, we hear today, who think that Edward Miliband is a natural leader?’ The Tory benches tittered, Labour MPs slumped into their seats as if this was a depressingly fair point,  and the Labour leader himself tried not to look too hurt.

[…]

For decades now the Westminster voting system has been unfair to the Tories. Boundary changes lag population movements, corralling Tories into larger constituencies. As a result, Labour can win on a far smaller share of the vote than the Tories. Tony Blair secured a comfortable majority in 2005 with 35 per cent of the vote, while David Cameron fell short of one with 36 per cent in 2010. Cameron tried to address this imbalance by reducing the number of MPs and equalising constituency sizes, but the Liberal Democrats — aware of the electoral harm this would do to them — killed the idea off.

Compounding this Tory problem is the rise of Ukip. In effect British elections are decided not by a mass popular vote, but by a handful of swing voters in swing seats. Lord Ashcroft last weekend released a poll of these marginal constituencies which said that Labour’s lead has widened to an almighty 17 points. This was not because Labour has become more popular, but because so many Tory supporters have defected to Ukip. Miliband is also buoyed by the fact that the British left, which split in the 1980s with the creation of the SDP, has reunited. When Clegg jumped into bed with Cameron, just under half of his erstwhile supporters leapt into Labour’s arms.

Tidskriftsomslag: The Spectator (där skuggfinansministern Ed Balls i rollen som Gromit på omslaget), 21 september 2013. New Statesman den 20-26 september 2013. Lägg märke till ordet ”predistribution” – det nya modeordet inom Labour – på sidovagnen.

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