Just over a month ago, I strayed from the usual 'non-aligned' focus of this blog to speculate on where one of the Labour leadership candidates, Ed Miliband, seemed to be positioning himself in the contest: 'Can Labour afford to back the Ed Milibandwagon?'I rather wished I hadn't, as it was picked up by the Labour List website - from where the link implied that I was suggesting that Miliband the Younger is a dangerous Trot, rather than the 'lefter than thou' candidate (at least among the boys in the race).
This prompted howls of anger from some of his supporters, one of whom suggested that I was engaged in a Daily Mail style 'hatchet job'.
Now, however, the gist of what I was saying has been echoed by Lord Mandelson, whose position is summed up in the Guardian website as follows:
.. speaking to The Times, Mandelson said anyone who tried to take Labour back to the era before Blair's election as leader in 1994 would wreck the party's chances of a swift return to power.
Addressing Ed Miliband's criticisms, the peer said: "I think that if he or anyone else wants to create a pre-New Labour future for the party then he and the rest of them will quickly find that that is an electoral cul-de-sac."
He said Lord Kinnock and Lord Hattersley – the former leader and deputy leader, who have both voiced support for Ed Miliband – wanted to "hark back to a previous age".
"We're a political party, not a church, and we require the support of voters actively to embrace us, and if we stop recognising that, then we're going to be taken back into those long years of opposition that served us and the country so ill.
"If you shut the door on New Labour you're effectively slamming the door in the faces of millions of voters who voted for our party."
.. speaking to The Times, Mandelson said anyone who tried to take Labour back to the era before Blair's election as leader in 1994 would wreck the party's chances of a swift return to power.
Addressing Ed Miliband's criticisms, the peer said: "I think that if he or anyone else wants to create a pre-New Labour future for the party then he and the rest of them will quickly find that that is an electoral cul-de-sac."
He said Lord Kinnock and Lord Hattersley – the former leader and deputy leader, who have both voiced support for Ed Miliband – wanted to "hark back to a previous age".
"We're a political party, not a church, and we require the support of voters actively to embrace us, and if we stop recognising that, then we're going to be taken back into those long years of opposition that served us and the country so ill.
"If you shut the door on New Labour you're effectively slamming the door in the faces of millions of voters who voted for our party."
I don't often find myself agreeing with the Prince of Darkness, but the similarity between this and what I posted a month ago has got me wondering whether he'd followed the link here from Labour List .
Or is he, perhaps, a regular reader of this blog?
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