David Miliband has upped the ante in the Labour leadership stakes of late with the statement “this is a time to be serious”. Avoiding the rough ‘n’ tumble of Balls’ campaign and the “head and heart” approach of his younger sibling, Miliband Snr. warned the Manchester hustings that Labour “could be out for a long time, history tells us we will”.
Meanwhile, Andy Burnham, near the rear in many a recent opinion poll, attempted to kick start his campaign by igniting class war among the candidates. The long-lashed Andy Pandy hit out at the “London-centric” nature of New Labour and argued that “we can’t have the people’s party run by the chattering classes on the London dinner party circuit” in a thinly veiled attack on the sons of established Marxist theorist Ralph Miliband.
