How to attack Labour leaders

Dear political journalists.

Your job is to criticize Ed Miliband. Of course, this might be because he's doing a bad job. But it's also because you are well-paid and privately educated, and so naturally unsympathetic to most Labour leaders. You will, therefore, want to oppose him whatever he does.

In this regard, you can learn from your colleagues on the sports desk. After years of practice they have perfected the art of condemning Arsene Wenger regardless of facts or logic. Their tricks can be adapted to Ed Miliband, for example:

1. Everything can be redescribed; if a man walks on water, say he can't swim. When Arsenal played better in the second half than the first at Everton it was because Wenger got his tactics wrong in the first half, whereas when Chelsea did better in the second period against Leicester, it was because Mourinho gave a brilliant half-time team talk. You can do the same for Miliband. Redescribe his intelligence as nerdiness. And if he looks like being popular with Labour activists, say he is out of touch with "middle England" - where "middle England is the 5% of voters like you.

2. The double whammy. When Arsenal had Patrick Vieira, Wenger's teams lacked discipline. Now they have a better disciplinary record, they have a soft centre. The same trick works for Labour leaders. If they seem out of touch with voters, emphasize their weirdness. If not, accuse them of populism.

3. See problems where none exist. Just as every defeat for Arsenal is a crisis, so keep asking what Labour plans to do about the deficit, even though most economists and investors don't care.

4. Never look for reasonable motives. When Wenger said he would happily pay £42m again for Ozil, he was accused of being stubborn rather than of wanting to boost Ozil's confidence. Similarly, you must say Ed Miliband's inactivity during the Scottish referendum was due to weak leadership rather than to a desire to avoid someone else's mess.

5. Avoid details. Football pundits claim that Wenger can't coach defending - forgetting that only the money-launderers kept more clean sheets than Arsenal last season - without saying precisely how to improve the defence. Similarly, you should demand that Miliband appeal more to voters in the south, without saying how.

6. Confuse luck with skill. Pundits claim that Arsenal's long injury list down the years is due to Wenger's bad management rather than bad luck - though, heeding point 5, they never say precisely how. Similarly, you should say that falling unemployment shows that Labour's criticism of Tory austerity was mistaken, and not point out that this has only happened thanks to an unexpected collapse in productivity growth.   

7. Ignore the fact that there are trade-offs. The pundits accuse Arsenal of defensive naivete because their fullbacks play high up the pitch. If they played deeper, however, the same gobshites experts would say Arsenal were over-run in midfield. The same trick works in politics. If Labour says little about the deficit, accuse them of lacking "credibility". If they have plans to reduce it, accuse them of tax bombshells and wanting to slash defence spending.

8. Never, ever mention the elephant in the room. Football writers (with the honorable exception of the gerat Matthew Syed) rarely point out that Wenger's relative lack of success in the last few years is because his rivals have spent hundreds of millions of pounds of stolen money. Similarly, you must never say that the biggest problem labour leaders face is that the power of the rich greatly constrains what any social democratic government can achieve. Pretend the game isn't rigged.

Comments

[Igor Belanov]

There I was thinking this post was about Ed Miliband. But no, it's just a highly biased, paranoid, self-pitying whine about Arsenal.
If there was any evidence that the media 'had it in for' Arsenal I might be sympathetic. But I think as a supporter of a club that qualifies for the Champions League but hasn't come close to winning the league in 10 years, you should count your blessings really.

[donald]

Have you read Syed's 10000 hours nurture over nature nonsense..

[Luke]

I am genuinely puzzled by the anti-Milliband press and saloon bar wisdom. Revenge for Leveson? Fear he might get elected?

And to anyone who reasonably points out that there was and remains a hatred of Thatcher/Blair - they were both actually in office for some time and did things that you might disagree with, but Milliband hasn't really done anything yet.

[Luis Enrique]

Igor you may credit the author with a little self awareness here

[Socialism in One Bedroom]

Hasn't Wenger been a bit of a yes man in relation to the Arsenal board? In the era of spending crazy money Wenger's balance the books approach seems like dogma, a dogma that has cost Arsenal many good players and reduced them to battling it out for 4th place.

And when he does finally spend the money it does nothing to enhance the team he has got. maybe that golden Arsenal team was a bit of luck for Wenger and the latter years are the real Wenger?

But you do have a point about Miliband!

[whyvert]

No, London political journalists unsympathies do not lie with Labour.

Recall one fact: Half of Labour Party members live in London.

May explain why their real unsympathies lie with UKIP.

[Socialism in One Bedroom]

No doubt the press are unsympathetic to Labour leaders who lean ever so slightly to the left, one reason being that the media is owned by the very wealthy. You don't need to be Einstein to work out why.

But in the case of Miliband you miss something out I think, the fact that in our culture Miliband doesn't have those leadership qualities, he looks just a bit too nerdy to be a leader. This is a cultural thing, people have been conditioned to imagine a leader being a certain type. In this respect we are no less brainwashed than the citizens of North Korea.

Having said all this the very fact of Boris Johnson does make you think anti Labour bias has something to do with it also!

[Dave Timoney]

I think the last PM who was widely considered by the press to actually look like a leader prior to his elevation was Anthony Eden.

[Sparks]

Great blog. Love it when you're angry.

[Omeros]

Too true, Chris! Too true! Arsene and Ed are both damned if they do and damned if they don't. That said, Arsene has been prone to idiosyncratic decision making in recent years. The plan to persist with Manuel Almunia when it was perfectly obvious that he needed a better keeper was genuinely mystifying, particularly when the man was failing to perform routine claims of the high ball in the box and was spooking his defence. But, yes, pointing out the machinations of money launderers makes some people angry.

[gastro george]

And, true to form, Nick Robinson tells us that Ed's NHS pledge will increase expenditure less than Thatcher did. So what should he be doing, Nick?

[formula57]

All fair points but the key one is that Miliband is no Arsene Wenger.

[Trofim]

"in our culture Miliband doesn't have those leadership qualities, he looks just a bit too nerdy to be a leader. This is a cultural thing, people have been conditioned to imagine a leader being a certain type".
(socialism in one bedroom. Sept. 23rd 2014)

Yes, there are lots of other cultures whose citizens haven't been brainwashed like us, where being nerdy, looking like a schoolboy, speaking in trite cliches in such a way that the fact that you have been coached is obvious and never having had a proper job are all highly regarded as leadership qualities.
The mind boggles.