Labour MP George Mudie has laid into Ed Miliband’s leadership on WATO, telling them that Labour isn’t setting the agenda and that he no longer knew what the party stood for. Mudie said:
“One of Ed’s problems really is that he’s young, and, of course, the way he came to power – the problem with his brother, the fact that the trade unions had a major say and I still think he’s trying to find himself.”
“I have difficulty knowing what we stand for now… I think, often, at the moment, the government are setting the agenda, making the weather and we’re responding to it. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown never did that.”
“I may have been a critic at times of, certainly Tony, and on occasions Gordon, but they made the weather, they set the agenda and they even set it in opposition. We’re not setting any agenda, we’re responding to the Tories.”
This is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about when I wrote yesterday about MPs feeling a sense of “drift” under Miliband’s leadership. Mudie is the first to go public with this though.
More from LabourList
Live updates as Prime Minister Andy Burnham appoints his Cabinet
Dear Andy and all other LabourList readers
‘Circuit breaker for Britain’: Read Andy Burnham’s first speech as Prime Minister in full