Ed Miliband: I’Ll Protect Our Children

[naomi24]

Ed Miliband has promised to do ‘whatever is necessary’ to protect children in the West Midlands from sexual abuse if he becomes Prime Minister. The Labour leader said a report released by West Midlands Police had to be taken ‘incredibly seriously’ after it flagged up ‘significant similarities’ between sex abuse gangs here and those uncovered in [Labour controlled] Rotherham.

http://www.expressandstar.com/news/2015/05/04/ed-miliband-ill-protect-our-children/

I thought he'd sunk as low as he could go in his unrelenting quest for power – until I read this. Can he sink any lower than using child abuse as a political weapon? I doubt it.

[jim360]

Ed Miliband has since retracted this statement acknowledging that saying anything about the child abuse scandal in Rotherham is unwise and in fact he now intends to ignore it, lest any promises of action be misinterpreted as political.

[naomi24]

//lest any promises of action be misinterpreted as political. //

As if they would!!

Do you have a link, jim?

[DaisyNonna]

And what might that be?

[naomi24]

What might what be?

[jourdain2]

Eh, Jim! Just read the link and it seems to say that Ed thinks the issue should be taken 'incredibly seriously'. Is he now backing off from that (although I have to say that the use of 'incredible' is challenging my understanding of English)?

I suppose he's realised that using the abuse scandal as a weapon is unwise.

[naomi24]

He rarely seems to think before he speaks.

[sunny-dave]

"Unrelenting Quest for Power" ... purlease - spare us the hyperbolic, platitudinous cliches.

By all means attack Miliband - I'd expect no less from you - but please engage a modicum of intelligence first.

For what it's worth, I agree that his statements on this are too little and much too late - most of the systematic abuse occurred under corrupt local councils run by some of the worst insults to intelligence and humanity you could imagine - I'm ashamed that they masqueraded under the Labour banner - Miliband should have been working much harder at expelling them.

Unlike you I'm not blind to the faults of the party I support - but I still regard it as the only real option if we want a fairer Britain with wealth and resources spread according to need and effort - not according to inheritance and the old boys (or girls) network.

[naomi24]

sunny-dave, Ed does have an unrelenting quest for power. His history as well as his penchant for saying whatever he thinks will advance his cause [aka himself] demonstrates that.

//a fairer Britain with wealth and resources spread according to need and effort//

Whose wealth from whose effort do you want a share of?

[sunny-dave]

I have enough wealth - I have no need of anyone else's - I vote on principle not just on blind self interest.

There are many in this country who have grown fat on the exploitation of others - there is a limit above which the accumulation of wealth and property becomes obscene. There is another limit below which it is equally obscene to expect people to live. I want a government that will control the first and alleviate the second.

[naomi24]

In that case your options are very limited indeed - because Labour certainly isn't going to fit the bill. (I vote on principle too).

[sunny-dave]

"Voting on principle" implies that you would be possibly sacrificing some of your own material wealth by voting as you do - as was the case when I voted for Labour governments that I knew would hurt me as a higher-rate tax payer. I knew that they were morally right and that over-rode my own financial interests.

I'd be fascinated to know what part of the Tory policies you support 'on principle' even though they would hurt your (or your husband's) personal wealth?

[naomi24]

Give me an example of what you mean and I’ll tell you if I support it.

[Kromovaracun]

That's kind of his point naomi. He can't give you an example of a tory policy that might harm you financially and is wondering if that is a coincidence.

[naomi24]

Oh, is that what he’s thinking? No wonder his vision is so blinkered. He's clearly determined to ignore the financial hardships that Labour has imposed upon the poor – one reason I no longer vote for them.

[Svejk]

Anyone who thinks Labour are a party 'for the poor', er, isn't poor.
As to the OP, do you think he knew the, not very Labour friendly, Rotherham reports were coming out today?

[naomi24]

svejk, as I said I think he'll say anything he thinks will further his cause. He doesn't appear to think beyond that.

[jim360]

He didn't in fact retract his statement, to my knowledge -- my first post was an attempt at satire.

I am struggling to understand exactly what the problem is. My point was that if Ed Miliband says nothing and ignores this then he can surely -- and rightly -- be accused of turning a blind eye to a scandal that is ultimately the responsibility of people from within his party. It cannot be acceptable for a major politician to continue to ignore this, and one would hope that all parties in government, whoever they are, will work to try and stop this from happening, or at least from going unpunished for as long as it did.

But then Ed Miliband does say something and is accused of using it as a political weapon. That is utterly unfair -- in part, of course, because it was a Labour council at Rotherham so that makes it rather harder to use as a weapon, and also because nowhere in the interview does he point the finger of blame at any politician, but talks of it as something that "we" have to deal with.

It seems to me then that based on this OP Ed Miliband would have been damned if he did, and damned if he didn't.

[naomi24]

Oh, satire. Right.

//“We’ve got to take these issues incredibly seriously.//

… implying that he will where others haven’t. Pity his Labour cronies didn’t do that a long time ago.

[jim360]

Well, an attempt at it anyway.

I don't think it's implying that at all. I'm not exactly a member of the Milifandom but I do think you're reading what you want to see into this.

It would be interesting to see how, and if, David Cameron responds to the issue. Presumably if he drags "Labour councils" into this he will just be telling the truth rather than using it as a political weapon?

[-Talbot-]

implying that he will where others haven’t. Pity his Labour cronies didn’t do that a long time ago.



C'mon, naomii...Thatcher didn't care at all, she was just worried about some of them getting caught