Ed Miliband: The Patriotism of a Refugee

NEW STATESMAN: The Labour leader recalls how he imbibed Jewish history from his mother and father.

“The first Jewish leader of the Labour Party.” It says something about me and about Britain that I am rarely described as such.

I am not religious. But I am Jewish. My relationship with my Jewishness is complex. But whose isn’t?

My family history often feels distant and far away. Yet the pain of this history is such that I feel a duty to remember, understand and discuss it – a duty that grows, rather than diminishes, over time.

As children we were only dimly aware of it but we caught glimpses. When I was seven, my family went to visit my grandmother in Tel Aviv. Pointing at a black-and-white photograph, I demanded to know who was “that man in the picture”. I remember being taken swiftly out of the room and then being told quietly that he was my grandfather David, who had died in Poland long before I was born. It was only some years later that I realised my mum’s father had died in a concentration camp, murdered by the Nazis for being Jewish. » | Ed Miliband* | Thursday, May 23, 2012

* Ed Miliband is the MP for Doncaster North and leader of the Labour Party.

Ed Miliband: David Cameron Has 'Sold Britain Down the River' in Europe
Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, has accused David Cameron of selling Britain 'down the river' by leaving the UK isolated from Europe.

Read the article and comment » | Christopher Hope, in London and Bruno Waterfield in Brussels | Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Ed Miliband: I Would Raise Taxes Higher Than Gordon Brown
THE TELEGRAPH: Ed Miliband’s Labour Party will push for increases in taxation at a higher rate than that proposed by Gordon Brown at the last general election.

The new leader said that he wanted to do “more” from taxation, adding that plans by Alistair Darling, the former chancellor, to cut the deficit over four years were only a “starting point”.

Mr Miliband, who joined in the traditional singing of the Red Flag at the close of Labour conference, has hit out his characterisation as “Red Ed” after he defeated his brother for the party leadership with the support of the trade unions.

But in a break from the New Labour era, when Tony Blair’s ministers shied away from advocating tax rises, he made clear that he was unafraid of being labelled left-wing. >>> Rosa Prince, Political Correspondent | Thursday, September 30, 2010

Ed Miliband to Throw Hat in Ring for Labour Leadership
THE TELEGRAPH: Ed Miliband is expected to announce on Saturday that he will challenge his older brother, David, for the leadership of the Labour Party.

Ed and David Miliband. Photo: The Telegraph
The shadow energy secretary, an ally of Gordon Brown, is thought to be planning to use a speech at a conference organised by the Fabian Society to set out his stall – and launch an attack on the former government's failure to reform the banking sector.

He will argue that Labour supporters should be proud of the party's achievements under Mr Brown, and will urge them not to react to the election loss by drifting to the Right on issues such as crime and immigration.

But, he will say, the party needs to be honest about why it fell from power, by having a "serious debate" about its values and reconnecting with those who were put off by issues such as the expenses scandal and the decision to go to war in Iraq.

And, in words that will be interpreted as an attack on the former prime minister and Lord Mandelson, the former business secretary, he will argue that Labour lost its "radical edge" by allowing bankers' pay to spiral.

"We lost touch with the lives of the people we represent," he will say. "We lost touch with the progressive ideals that characterised the earlier years of the government." >>> Rosa Prince, Political Correspondent | Friday, May 14, 2010

Britain's New Royalty -- The Oil Potentates
”And I say to my friend Brown, the prime minister of Britain; the Queen of Britain, Elizabeth; Prince Andrew, who all contributed to encouraging the Scottish government to make this historic and courageous decision, despite the obstacles.” – Colonel Qaddafi

THE HUFFINGTON POST: Where British Tradition once mandated subjects to genuflect before their royals, Britain is now busy instructing itself on how to properly render homage by prostrating themselves nose to ground before their new potentates, the oil barons of Araby.

There he was, Libyan Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi who had been found guilty of the murderous Lockerbie air disaster that took the lives of 270 people, stepping off his specially chartered Libyan aircraft to a cheering crowd upon his arrival at the airport in Tripoli. Eichmann being received by a cheering crowd in Germany would have been the same, not in dimension, but certainly in principle.

Al-Megrahi's release was being trumpeted by Mr. Kenneth MacAskill, Scotland's Justice Secretary, as an act of compassion for a man said to be diagnosed with prostrate cancer and having but three months to live. It was a decision met with outrage by family members of the victims, and a general outcry of disgust throughout much of the world ranging from President Obama to FBI Director Robert Mueller, "makes a mockery of the grief of the families who lost their own on December 21, 1988".

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said that the act of releasing al-Megrahi had been the the decision of the Scottish Secretary alone. But was it?? Or as commented in the Financial Times, politicians are now prepared to go to extra lengths to maintain good relations with his country -- the richest in North Africa and an important supplier of energy to Europe. Even more pointedly according to Lord Trefgarne, Mr. al-Megrahi's release had opened the way for Britain's leading oil companies to pursue multibillion dollar oil contracts with Libya which had demanded Mr. al-Megrahi's return in talks with British officials and business executives.

Scandalous? Perhaps. But then again maybe not if this has become Britain's new norm. Kowtowing to moneyed Middle Eastern/North African oil interests may not be new but it does assume a singular level of malice when it is dealt with in such a brazen manner trashing tradition and principles of law, in the lust for lucre or responding to outright intimidation and blackmail. >>> Raymond J. Learsey* | Monday, August 24, 2009

*Scholar and Author of 'Over a Barrel: Breaking Oil’s Grip on Our Future'