Ed keeps on winning – so why stop now?

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

Today the government, and David Cameron, folded their cards. They faced a Labour motion in the house that they wouldn’t win (politically) and would has struggled to win (numerically). Cameron wasn’t willing to send his MPs out to vote in favour of Murdoch continuing his takeover bid for BSkyB – it just wasn’t worth the reaction he’d face from the public. And besides, the Lib Dems would never had voted with the Tories.

Losing a parliamentary vote in a bid to save News International’s bacon just wasn’t an option in the current climate. It was an avoidable loss for the PM – so he avoided it. And by avoiding a humiliating defeat he handed Ed Miliband another win.

Miliband has been leading the campaign against News International and the BSkyB takeover all week. It was only last Wednesday that he ignored the advice of his own office and linked phone hacking and BSkyB. That gave the campaign against the takeover vital oxygen. Without it we likely wouldn’t be where we are now.

So far, Ed has played his hand impeccably.

Yet it’s no secret that Miliband is something of an outrider amongst his own supporters in the party hierarchy and the PLP. There will obviously be many people counselling Ed to say enough is enough. To have all three major parties united in opposition to Murdoch’s takeover of BSkyB is indeed an achievement few would have thought possible just two weeks ago.

And yet the scale of that success, and the pace of current events, is exactly why Ed shouldn’t stop now. The real issue at stake, as Anthony Painter has rightly noted, is the concentration of power in the hands of newspaper proprietors, and the suitability of News International to own some of the leading lights of the UK press.

Just this morning I urged Ed not to stop now. This rollercoaster of a story has rattled further along the tracks since then. He needs to show more of the resolve and leadership that we’ve seen in recent days. The rollercoaster has a few more twists and turns yet.

If Miliband holds his nerve, then there’s no reason why he needs to get off yet…