Should Miliband try for Labour leader?

Chris Dillow has been trying to think his way into David Miliband's position. And he doesn't think its worth being Labour leader now or any time soon:

So, if I [Miliband] become Labour leader, I’ll be like William Hague in 1997-2001. I might be smarter and more principled than my rival, but I’ve no chance of becoming PM.

Now what Chris has done is assess the probability of Miliband becoming PM if he were leader. He concludes that the probability is greater for the next Labour leader and thus that Miliband shouldn't go for the leadership now.

Yes, but.

You see the other calculation Miliband has to make is the probability of becoming leader at any given moment.

To make a sensible calculation of when to go for the leadership, you have to multiply the chance of a Labour leader being PM by the chance of you becoming leader. Miliband's chance of being leader is high now, but it is much less certain he will pull it off if he waits.

That, incidentally, is precisely the calculation William faced in 1997 and he still feels he made the right choice even though it didn't turn out well.

 

Comments

[Labour Matters]

Somebody should run so that Gordon can decisively win and people like you, Mr Finkelstein, can stop dealing in trivia of your own making.

[syd]

Labour is finished, there is not one MP with the brains or bottle to give the electorate what it wants, more and more people are turning the BNP because they don't trust Labour or Tories any longer and the Lb Dems are just a joke

[Ben Moss]

Miliband...Principled?

Ha ha ha ha ha. You were of course joking?

It didn't turn out so badly, either for Hague or the Conservative Party.

OK, the Conservatives lost badly again in 2001 and he didn't become PM - but there's an argument the Party was facing destruction after 1997 and Hague saved it much as Kinnock saved the Labour Party post-1983.

He also saved the pound, which is no small thing.

In the process, Hague made his name and thereby his fortune.

And the Conservatives now have a popular and capable Shadow Foreign Secretary.

Happy days!

[Gordon Alexander]

I've read and re-read this, Mr Finklestein, but I really don't quite understand your point in trying to rekindle public interest in this toy-minister. I suspect most British people would have difficulty remembering who he is or what he has achieved, while most foreign potentates he has met will have pretty well forgotten who he is and what he might have said even before his plane has arrived back at Heathrow.

[Marbury]

An aside: I find the idea that Hague was smarter than Blair odd. I mean, maybe Hague writes a better biography, I don't know. But when it comes to the only kind of smartness that counts in this game - political smartness - he wasn't even in the same league. As for more principled - again, how so? Is his attempt to whip up fears about the pound being abolished and Britain being swamped by immigrants the evidence for such a proposition? Or his decision to leave the front bench and earn money whilst the party recovered from the mess he left it in? Seems, er, thin.

Perhaps Dillow is suggesting that's what Miliband believes. But I think that's unlikely...

[Cllr Ken Tiwari (ndependent)]

This Miliband is a twerp, miliband-
don't even know, how to wipe his nose? Leader of what?
Lord help us all!

[Robert Bottamley]

No; Mr Miliband oughtn't to try for Labour leader: instead, he should try for Conservative leader. Then, he would become (if only momentarily) that rarest of creatures belonging to New Labour - an honest politician.

[Josh]

"I find the idea that Hague was smarter than Blair odd"

I don't think anyone who examines their speeches and actions would. Blair is, at best, not stupid; Hague is a pretty bright boy. (NB absence of comma between penultimate wordpair ;).

[ian payne]

NO !!!!!

[Paul Clieu]

Mr Milliband has done absolutely nothing to suggest he could run the proverbial whelk stall let alone get the Labour Party and the UK out of the appalling mess the entire Labour Cabinet has made of government for the last 11 years.

In reality, Milliband has even less credibility and gravitas than the awful G. Brown who has virtually none.

If you asked a former Labour voter, "Would you be more likely to vote Labour with Milliband "in charge" ? I don't think they would even bother to dignify the question with an answer.

This is a non story. The entire country is just waiting for the day when these idiots leave for good.

The real question is "Dave Green the Tree Hugger" up to the job? Like Brown and Blair, he has never run anything in his life and just like the two Labour clowns, he doesn't know how ordinary people live and work. While Blair and Brown merely used global warming as an excuse to raise taxes, Dave Green appears to have a personal (religious) mission on global warming. In these very difficult times this is alarming for business, employment and prosperity.

bloke is another labour prat

[Kate]

As one obvious qualification for the job of PM is being a liar then anyone in government would be a suitable candidate.

[Jack R]

Miliband would certainly speed up the entry of 75 million Turks in to the EU, and the consequent rapid Islamisation of Europe, which is one of his key foreign policies; and there is no danger he would ever allow a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty/Constitution.

[Stephen Channell]

Mischief, mischief, mischief, We don’t do stalking horses in the Labour Party.. Gordon Brown will be leader until he decides to step down.
Gordon will step down when two conditions are met:
1) It is clear that he’ll loose to the Tories.
2) There is another candidate leader who can win.
The problem is that the Labour Party need to fully come to terms with ‘new Labour’, and the value of Tony Blair as leader.. and not presume that ‘we could have won with Smith/Kinock/Foot’.. a compelling constituency does not yet exist for a ‘new Labour’ candidate leader to win the party and the election.

[Jeremy Poynton]

Just say no. Mad eyes. Reminds me of the Midwich Cuckoo kids

[megz]

I don't think miliband is the man for the job, he gives me the creeps anyway.

[Andrew]

This half-Polish, half-Belgian Marxist becoming the leader of the Labour party would be the final insult, from a government which has done everything in its power to dilute and disenfranchise the indigenous population of once-Great Britain. He has no loyalty or allegiance to this country, which he aptly demonstrated in November 2007 by stating that the EU should work towards including Russia, Middle Eastern and North African countries. How many millions more does he want living on this vastly overpopulated island? Furthermore, following the recent Irish rejection of the Lisbon Treaty, Miliband stated that there needs to be a "careful analysis of the vote"! What part of "No" doesn't he understand? Remembering that a British referendum was promised in his party's manifesto, this is yet another example of the fascist left destroying our democracy.

[ed]

could someone please explain to me WHY Milliband is being bandied about as the next PM, but one PM, future PM? Having made a hash at DEFRA, DFES and a complete non-entity at the FO - what
exactly is so great about this guy? What are his achievements or am I missing something?

[Breeze]

Not Silliband... as if the UK is not already the laughing stock without installing a 6th former as PM. He would have to apologise to Parliament whilst he took time off to revise for his GCSE's.