Ed Miliband is a geek, a failure and a loser. All the press says so, so it must be true. Yet the apparent no-hoper retains the ability of the boy who confronted the naked emperor to change the terms of debate.
Ever since Mrs Thatcher, the working assumption of the British elite has been that it must always placate Rupert Murdoch. If that meant the corruption of government — the ruling party giving special treatment to Murdoch’s businesses, Murdoch giving the ruling party propagandistic support in return — so be it. If that meant successive Prime Ministers debasing themselves (and their country) before an overmighty citizen, who was not even a British citizen, then, and by all means, they would do that too. The idea that the rule of law did not cover Murdoch is at the root of the phone hacking debacle — although I regret to say that Lord Justice Leveson has shown no interest to date in investigating the real scandal.
For all His Lordship’s cowardice, let no one forget that there would not have been an inquiry or a proper police investigation if Ed Miliband had not ignored his Blairite colleagues and challenged the unchallengeable.
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