Philip Collins reviews the week in politics
Other people’s families are always strange. How much stranger when the idea of a political fight within a family is no longer a metaphor. Ed Miliband recently told of his parents’ journey to England and his gratitude for their refuge here. This dramatic and effective story could have been a moment of emotional differentiation if it weren’t for the inconvenient fact that the other serious candidate has the same parents.
The battle for the Labour leadership remains a curious contest which has provoked no curiosity. The public was asked this week which of the candidates would make the best prime minister: 64 per cent said either none of the above or that they didn’t know. Yet this week the pace, if not quite the pulse, quickened. Lord Mandelson’s unconvincing lapse into silence ended with the accusation that Ed Miliband would lead Labour into an electoral cul-de-sac.
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