David's Great Escape.

So Ed’s made his first speech as leader of the Labour Party. He won them over with, 1/ humble origins, 2/ struggle, 3/ other people did stuff wrong, 4/ England is fab, 5/ I am your leader now and 6/ I offer a new beginning. It’s not a million miles from what his brother would have said, what Gordon, Tony and David did say, and I’d imagine what Adolph Hitler said when becoming Chancellor but without the stylish arm movement. At any rally of the faithful the first few rows are reserved for fellow politicians and the further back you go the more ordinary people see it from a distance. There’s a sort of fog that descends on these politicians from the years it’s taken them to progress the twenty five yards to front of the hall, all that experience of other politicians, of political thinking and how politics works. They applauded Ed’s speech because it ticked all the political boxes yet it’s content is as bland and futile as Miss World’s desire for world peace and an end to poverty. And just as Miss World is preoccupied with her beauty and the length of her eyelashes so too politicians consider their appeal and standing in their own beauty contest. It’s not that they aren’t intelligent, hard working and well intentioned, it’s that the process of getting to where they are has induced in them a collective delusion that they have with power great responsibility. They are the one who will shoulder the personal responsibility of millions and mistakenly gather it into a position of great importance. One after another line up to take on the role that will make them old men. It’s as if they don’t recognise their future in the hollow eyes and drawn faces of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. They study history as though it won’t happen to them. But it does. It will. Maybe in ten or fifteen years David Miliband will look back and see a merciful release.