THE SUN AND THE MILLIPEDE

This is a tale of the Sun Newspaper and the Millipede aka Ed Miliband and takes the form of an open letter.

Dear Ed Miliband, I write to you in connection with the photograph you posed for holding the free issue of the Sun Newspaper on the front page of which was a montage of living English people over the block capital headline THIS IS OUR ENGLAND.

I note immediately that you have publically apologized to the people of Merseyside for this in view of their natural sensitivity about the filthy lying reportage by this paper in respect of the Hillsborough Disaster and implication that those who’d died had behaved badly and brought their demise on themselves. Your conduct in posing for this paper holding the full page deepened a great insult to all the poor and working people of the region and beyond.

This letter however is neither about your conduct shameful as it was nor your apology. Neither is it about the ghastly expression on your face, a compendium of pride and publicity opportunism with the visage presented plain horrid. No, what I want to talk to you about here are two other matters connected with this incident. One being your personal political character, the other about the kind of people who appear in the montage and what they represent.

Now I’m aware of course that you are a self-declared social democrat with a middle class educational background and values that go with this. That you are certainly no socialist and are much closer politically to Nick Clegg than Nye Bevan, founder of the National Health Service. I am also clear in my own mind that you are unlikely to understand what I am saying here. Not because you don’t want to understand but because you’re simply unable to because of the political creature you have become as evidenced by the kind of advisors you have surrounded yourself with who had doubtless suggested that here, on the cusp of an England national sporting day, with the leaders of the two other main political parties offered substantial national publicity to show them standing at one with the public, the opportunity offered by this long time Tory paper could simply not be refused.

Well if you’d actually had the courage and conscience you could have said NO, but with an eye on publicity value you were simply too afraid of the consequences  i.e. of antagonizing the powerful Murdoch Press in the run up year to a General Election. Just another part of your political soul sold and your values compromised for the sake of expediency. Another small step on the road to becoming a clone of Dark Gordon, your dark master in whose calamitous Government you so faithfully served.

This letter then isn’t about what you did, your gross insensitivity, your judgement or personal character all of which I find wanting. It is in fact about what you saw in the composite and how you judged it. So what did you note in the photo the Sun presented of OUR ENDLAND? It was indeed the newspaper’s England, those who “sum up the essence of England today.” Okay Mr Miliband, let’s see who they are. Well, they’re mainly politicians, royals, and people from the world of sport and entertainment. Many are television celebrities. These are the broad classes with a few businessmen like Philip Green and inventors like Berners Lee being exceptions. So, the Sun’s view of England, and yours, because of your pose with the composite signifying your acceptance, is of an England best represented by entertainers and media celebrities and it is this Mr Miliband that is so deeply offensive and the fact that as leader of the Parliamentary Labour Party you should believe it.

So what kind of person are you actually who believes that the essence of English people, the English at their best, is made up of entertainers, politicians, sports people, royals and media celebrities. Well you see I believe that the page should have been BLANK. A tribute to the countless unknown people of great heart and generosity of spirit who do vital work helping others in countless situations and places… those who struggle against poverty and injustice on a daily basis, those single parents and families who struggle to make ends meet, those people who silently and anonymously do great and valuable science research work and last but not least those who tirelessly work in the NHS to protect the health of the nation. ALL OF THESE ARE OUR ENGLAND, who represent that which is best of the spirit of the nation. Whose lives and conduct are altruistic rather than the crowd of busily self-promoting celebrities you posed with. It is the former, those whom Rudyard Kipling once called ‘the mere uncounted folk’ that the Labour Party once cared for but whom you and your wretched advisors now deem to be unimportant. And it is this fact that in itself reveals what you are politically and where you stand. That in posing for the photo same as Clegg and Cameron you are basically no different to them in your values.

This has been recently confirmed by your statement that a Labour Government if elected next year will take away any financial benefit that unemployed young people between the ages of 18 and 21 receive to live on and help them find work. Unemployed young people are among the poorest and most needy in our country. They face daily disadvantage and cheap labour, unregulated employment prospects. They are among the worst off and most put upon, often coming from highly disadvantaged family circumstances that are surely no fault of their own. This often depressed youth needs an arm to help them rise not a slap in the face to punish them. TAKING THIS SUPPORT FROM THEM, AS YOU SAY, TO HELP REDUCE THE SO CALLED FINANCIAL DEFICIT WHICH FOR GOD’S SAKE WAS CERTAINLY NO FAULT OF THEIR OWN IS A HATEFUL THING TO DO AND REVEALS EXACTLY HOW LOW YOU AND YOUR PARTY HAVE SUNK.

IT IS VINDICTIVE AND MALICIOUS AND HAS ALL THE SMELL OF ANTI-WORKING CLASS TORYISM ABOUT IT.

I won’t be voting for you at the next General Election Ed Millipede. It’s because of what your photo with the Sun revealed about you, and because you then immediately confirmed what you are. Someone who’s values are twisted and rotten. That you only care about the privileged, the rich and the famous, not most of our youth… the anxious and troubled, the hard up and desperate, the homeless and poor.