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.

[Kromovaracun]

"He's clearly determined to ignore the financial hardships that Labour has imposed upon the poor – one reason I no longer vote for them."

Fair point.

[naomi24]

Talbot, I don’t think that information was in the public domain – not that that’s a valid reason to ignore it. That said, she certainly didn’t bang on about sorting the unsavoury out just because an election was looming – which is what Ed appears to be doing.

[-Talbot-]

Well she wouldn't would she, naomi...she didn't have to, the information wasn't in the public domain.

[sp1814]

naomi24

Should Ed Milliband have said nothing about the report?

If the report was published recently (ie. in the run up to the election), should have stayed quiet until after polling day?

Also, are there politicians who don't have an unrelenting quest for power?

[Svejk]

It would be a strange politician who wasn't determined to attain and use power.

[naomi24]

Talbot, So no damage limitation speeches necessary?

SP, he is rather “Me, me’ me!” Super-Ed will cure all!

[Ellipsis]

> 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.

Intended satire or not, that is exactly what he should have done. It's despicable that he should attempt to make political capital out of the Rotherham scandal.

EM> “We have big lessons to learn as a society about this and we are absolutely determined to protect our country’s children.”

That is stating the obvious. Next he'll be saying it wouldn't have happened on his watch ... except it did (something he failed to mention).

A simple, apolitical response would have been "What happened in Rotherham was an absolute disgrace and I'm sure that, whoever the next Prime Minister is, they will take a look at the report's findings and use them to better protect our country's children".

Instead, he implied that he would do something and nobody else would, when the very reason he was being asked the question was because it happened under Labour.

[naomi24]

^Precisely.

[jim360]

Like I said earlier, I don't think he could have won whatever he said. Even if he had tried to stick to the line Ellipsis suggests then it wouldn't have lasted. Attacking him for suggesting that he would take action over this only makes sense if you didn't like the guy already. Fair enough, but the idea that this is somehow incredibly low is a nonsense, or at any rate blinkered to similar behaviour from pretty much any other politician.

Ed Miliband didn't directly say that he alone would do something about this, and seems to me to be a bona fide example of, well, putting words into someone's mouth. At no point did he attack the Tories -- I think you are making this a far more political thing than it actually was.

If you really want an example of low, Tony Blair on the Bulger case comes close. Then he did turn it into an attack on the Conservative government. Ed Miliband hasn't done anything of the sort this time.

No way is this a low. A wholly unfair criticism.

[naomi24]

Jim, //I don't think he could have won whatever he said. //

A semblance of dignity and an ability to avoid rhetoric which may be deemed to be in poor taste is to be commended. Unfortunately, Ed possesses neither.

[douglas9401]

"A semblance of dignity and an ability to avoid rhetoric which may be deemed to be in poor taste is to be commended. Unfortunately, Ed possesses neither."

Shurely "Unfortunately, the vast majority of politicians possess neither". :-)

[naomi24]

I don’t think that’s true, Douglas. Most have the ability to engage their brain to some small degree before they open their mouths – and don’t call me Shurely. ;o)