It isn’t really about eating a sandwich Ed
[dropcap]O[/dropcap]f course Ed Miliband eating a bacon sandwich isn’t important – but what do you expect?
The other day the BBC published an article which picked five key moments from the year. Four were pretty much uncontroversial. Clearly the Ebola crisis, the kidnapping of hundreds of Nigerian schoolgirls by the militant Boko Haram group, the shooting down (quite possibly by pro-Russian separatists) of Malaysian Airlines plane MH17 over Ukraine, and the ongoing conflict in Syria will be remembered in recent years by people looking back at 2014. But the fifth was a bit different.
Labour leader Ed Miliband is not really a natural with the media. He doesn’t take a good picture and doesn’t have the easy movements and charm that some other leaders possess. But is a picture of him struggling to eat a bacon sandwich in a dignified manner really news in the same way? Of course it isn’t.
Miliband, let’s not forget, is not running to become some sort of leading expert in sandwich eating, a kind of lunchtime hero for the Bake Off era. No, he’s one of two men in with a chance of becoming Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It’s not an outrageous statement to suggest that his capability to deal with international power politics, management of the economy, and his plans to deal with low pay, the deficit and everything else might be more important than a square-off with a bacon butty.
It’s nothing new that leaders even slightly to the left of the prevailing economic consensus get mocked in such a way in order to discredit them.
However, there’s no point getting particularly animated about this. It’s nothing new that leaders even slightly to the left of the prevailing economic consensus get mocked in such a way in order to discredit them. One of Miliband’s staunch supporters, Neil Kinnock, was mocked by the Sun on the day of the 1992 general election with a front page comprising his (ginger) head in a lightbulb and the headline ‘If Kinnock wins today will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights’.
Neither Kinnock nor Miliband are going to declare Full Communism the day after election victory. But to even be where they are ideologically given the force of the majority right-wing press ranged against them is admirable, and would make a real difference to many people in our society. But it’s not surprising that people with a vested interest in keeping things the way they are, like the owners of the newspapers and the super-rich, would like to make them look ridiculous.
Ultimately, we have a free press in this country, and in a capitalist society there’s no surprise this will be biased to the right – and consequently influence the national conversation (and the BBC) in such a way. But the experience of Kinnock twenty years ago shows this is nothing new – and as such complaining about it won’t help, and as such it would be better to focus on raising one’s game and improving the argument.
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Photo: flickr / thribb
Comments (1)
It is easy to slam the press for attacking Ed Miliband, but the Labour leader is a big fan of substantial press regulation, and they have a lot to lose if he gets into power. In past speeches, he has described pretty much everyone who has ever been discussed or printed in the press as a ‘victim’, and although it is true that some papers and journalists were engaged in horrific and criminal activities, that is simply an untrue and unfair statement. Under Ed Miliband, there is a very real risk that we could lose our free press, and that is unacceptable.
Also, another point of interest – this post about the top happenings was found on the BBC, which has been exhibiting a bias against the right-wing as far back as Lord Reith. It can be seen everywhere – the recent adaption of a story about Margaret Thatcher’s assassination, for example, or the continuous discrediting of Nigel Farage whenever he appears on-screen, even taking quotes out of context just to make an anti-UKIP story. If anything, Ed Miliband has gotten off quite lightly. You also make quite an unfair point in suggesting that Miliband’s victory would be beneficial for many people in society – firstly, a hell of a lot of people are doing fairly well under the Tories, or surviving under austere times. Miliband would have to do the same thing, or (more likely) began to borrow again, effectively dooming the people a few years down the line. The best outcome is no change, and that could happen with any party.
The BBC cannot cover the plans you discuss because they barely had any impact when – and, indeed, if – they were announced. Miliband’s big party speech suffered from the obsession with image he apparently doesn’t have – in his eagerness to appear without notes, he forgot half his speech. He refuses to announce many of his economic plans ahead of the election. His party releases documents revealing that their members are to turn people away from the subject of immigration, something a lot of the population worry about, rightly or wrongly.
Sure, we can’t just judge him on a daft picture of failing to eat a sandwich. But the fact remains that a potential leader of our country is a man who struggles to eat a sandwich – it doesn’t bode well for the future.