Wannabe prime minister Ed Milliband is struggling to define himself. Much has been made of his recent attempt to put on show his solid, old labourish sort of credentials and burnish his image with what is one of Labour's traditional core constituents. In a stunt mixing parody, comedy and hypocrisy in equal measures, he recently decided to invite the press along to join him for an early breakfast, in one of those ghastly contrived events so beloved by out of touch politicians. They all do it, from Cameron hugging hoodies and huskies, through to the more recent, toe curlingly dreadful attempts at false bonhomie summoned up by Nick Clegg and that eternal cure for happiness, otherwise known as Vince Cable, as they choked their way through a pint and warm helpings of mutual loathing in a pub in Soho
But, back to our friend Ed. He must seriously underestimate his target audience if he thinks that by sitting down to chew and rip his way through what transpired to be a treacherously uncooperative breakfast bacon butttie , all those "working-men" (and women too of course, Ed is a study in gender equality) will suddenly see in him as one of their own. They won't, quite simply, because he isn't.
Ed and his spinners are now trying to cast what we can now term the "great bacon butttie moment" as symptomatic of how our shallow and vindictive press focus on the inconsequential when matters of far greater substance, such as Ed's policies and philosophies, are not deemed as newsworthy. In a way he is quite right; to focus upon how he eats a bacon sandwich is of course a nonsense. What he does not understand though, is that this is not really the story.
Milliband deliberately wanting to be seen by the press eating a bacon butttie serves as the metaphor to illustrate how he is seeking to portray himself as someone who we all instinctively know he is not. And it is this metaphor that, not just his target audience, but the wider public too, latch onto, either directly or even at a subconscious level. He is not a working man, preparing for a hard days graft (literally) by carbo-loading at his local cafe each morning. In truth he is all those things they are not, he is what he seeks to brand his opponents; namely a creature of privilege. He is Harvard educated, erudite, academic, married to a barrister, and living in a London property worth several million Pounds. Yet he seeks to eschew the later by trying to pretend he can get down and do the "bacon-butttie" with former. His comical inability to do so in practice is for him far less serious than the self evident discomfort of trying to pretend, disingenuously, that he is something that he palpably is not.
None of them get this. Milliband does not realise that we are not laughing at his eating habits (well, perhaps for the first few moments). What in fact we are laughing at, now several weeks on, is the fact that he thinks we will do not see through this stunt and through him. This is the same reason we laugh at Clegg and Cable pretending to enjoy a pint in a pub together. We know how much they loath each other. We laugh not just at the sight of them unhappily together in a pub but, more seriously because they consider that, we, the electorate, will so easily be fooled by a few photo opportunities into somehow believing that they are drinking buddies and best mates. More fool them.
Milliband has now is seems recognised this and is attempting to rebrand himself as the serious politician, focused not on shallow frivolities like public image, his personal grooming and silly press events, but on issues that concern us all. There again, he overestimates how easy it is to do this, and underestimates how easily we will see through it.
His biggest failure is that his party has not apologised for the mess in which they left the economy 4 years ago. This is the single biggest millstone around his neck; it is not choice of breakfast sandwich, his looks, or that he thinks that we think that he is a weird policy wonk or whatever. Whilst economists can argue and write thick tomes about who is responsible for what aspect of economic failure, what Milliband and his party do not get is that, in nice simple terms, if you are captaining the ship when you sail it into the iceberg then ultimately, it is your fault. A bit of a mea culpa moment a couple of years ago would have been in order. But it's too late now, breakfast is long over and it's now time for his night-cap
But, back to our friend Ed. He must seriously underestimate his target audience if he thinks that by sitting down to chew and rip his way through what transpired to be a treacherously uncooperative breakfast bacon butttie , all those "working-men" (and women too of course, Ed is a study in gender equality) will suddenly see in him as one of their own. They won't, quite simply, because he isn't.
Ed and his spinners are now trying to cast what we can now term the "great bacon butttie moment" as symptomatic of how our shallow and vindictive press focus on the inconsequential when matters of far greater substance, such as Ed's policies and philosophies, are not deemed as newsworthy. In a way he is quite right; to focus upon how he eats a bacon sandwich is of course a nonsense. What he does not understand though, is that this is not really the story.
Milliband deliberately wanting to be seen by the press eating a bacon butttie serves as the metaphor to illustrate how he is seeking to portray himself as someone who we all instinctively know he is not. And it is this metaphor that, not just his target audience, but the wider public too, latch onto, either directly or even at a subconscious level. He is not a working man, preparing for a hard days graft (literally) by carbo-loading at his local cafe each morning. In truth he is all those things they are not, he is what he seeks to brand his opponents; namely a creature of privilege. He is Harvard educated, erudite, academic, married to a barrister, and living in a London property worth several million Pounds. Yet he seeks to eschew the later by trying to pretend he can get down and do the "bacon-butttie" with former. His comical inability to do so in practice is for him far less serious than the self evident discomfort of trying to pretend, disingenuously, that he is something that he palpably is not.
None of them get this. Milliband does not realise that we are not laughing at his eating habits (well, perhaps for the first few moments). What in fact we are laughing at, now several weeks on, is the fact that he thinks we will do not see through this stunt and through him. This is the same reason we laugh at Clegg and Cable pretending to enjoy a pint in a pub together. We know how much they loath each other. We laugh not just at the sight of them unhappily together in a pub but, more seriously because they consider that, we, the electorate, will so easily be fooled by a few photo opportunities into somehow believing that they are drinking buddies and best mates. More fool them.
Milliband has now is seems recognised this and is attempting to rebrand himself as the serious politician, focused not on shallow frivolities like public image, his personal grooming and silly press events, but on issues that concern us all. There again, he overestimates how easy it is to do this, and underestimates how easily we will see through it.
His biggest failure is that his party has not apologised for the mess in which they left the economy 4 years ago. This is the single biggest millstone around his neck; it is not choice of breakfast sandwich, his looks, or that he thinks that we think that he is a weird policy wonk or whatever. Whilst economists can argue and write thick tomes about who is responsible for what aspect of economic failure, what Milliband and his party do not get is that, in nice simple terms, if you are captaining the ship when you sail it into the iceberg then ultimately, it is your fault. A bit of a mea culpa moment a couple of years ago would have been in order. But it's too late now, breakfast is long over and it's now time for his night-cap
