Ed Milliband’s Choice

Now that the Shadow Cabinet has been elected, the Labour Leader has to make those chosen into a powerful opposition team, capable of harrying the Coalition in parliament, in the county and across the media. The new team needs to look like a new government in waiting. It must not look like the old defeated and discredited government on the run.

Every commentator is now focused on the choice of Shadow Chancellor. Will it be the other Ed or will it be Yvette? If Ed Milliband wants to break with New labour and its now much derided economic legacy he will choose neither. If he wants to line up a pigeon to be shot at by George Osborne et al for being on the bridge when the ship struck the iceberg, he can chose either. They are both as guilty as each other. They are, after all husband and wife. Labour needs to produce a little more substance after the drama of the two Millibands than something that looks like a family soap first and serious politics second.