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Ed Milliband on Syria: the danger of a political strategy where you expect to lose

In essence Ed Milliband's position on Syria was essentially the same as the government's. Hence he needed to lose to avoid people noticing that his position is tactical rather than based upon principle.

There are a number of principled positions. However, his position was pure oppositionism. He now faces the real difficulty that although his amendment failed he also voted against the substantive and defeated that.

How can he justify that?

Comments

SamO said…
Wrong again, stop spinning the hole is just getting deeper.
So you put down Cameron's failure to convince 60 of his own MPs (and many LDs) to vote for his own motion as a real difficulty for Ed Milliband?!
Plus you keep saying that Milliband's amendment was the same as the gov. motion- so why did the gov. not vote for it and thus at least ensure that amended motion was carried?
John Hemming said…
The motion itself was quite bland. It had been accepted that parliament was not going to approve military action.

The vote on the motion was after the vote on the amendment. Hence if someone voted for the amendment, but after that opposed the motion they need to be able to explain their reasoning from a position of principle.

John Hemming said…
Admittedly in The Telegraph, but
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ed-miliband/10278338/Syrian-crisis-Ed-Miliband-faces-growing-criticism-from-Labour-ranks.html

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