The commentators                    10-11-14

...on Ed Miliband

Ed Miliband possesses the potential to be a great reforming Prime Minister so grumbling Labour MPs should put up or shut up and get back to the work of electing a Labour government...The madness of the past few days reminds me of the Labour strife that cost the party dearly ahead of 2010. Labour might have finished with most MPs and kept out Cameron had not idiots tried and failed three times to oust Gordon Brown. The crowds may never see Miliband as a messsiah but he is a very decent boy
- Kevin Maguire, Daily Mirror
The Labour nomenklatura are at last waking up to the horror of what a Labour government would mean – paying tens of thousands of pounds just for the right to live in the family home, a home that they have done up and improved over the years without realising that they would be punished for their efforts. That is why they are so recklessly running down Miliband, and briefing against him at every opportunity.
- Boris Johnson, Daily Telegraph
Polly Toynbee
 Labour MPs need to put up or shut up – right now. An outbreak of nerves is unsurprising as Labour’s lead weakens but these 20 shadow ministers need to come out of their shadows pronto and stop indulging in days of panic. Either they should break surface backed by such a great groundswell that Ed Miliband stands down gracefully and gives way to an agreed successor – or if not, stop this doom-laden dithering.
- Polly Toynbee, The Guardian
Ed Miliband, awkward and robotic as he seems to be when interviewed on television or radio (or even when filmed eating a bacon sandwich), is not the main problem for Labour — as those Survation polling figures show. He has always generated dreadful approval figures on a personal level, even when the Labour Party was 10 to 15 points ahead of the Conservatives in the opinion polls. No, the problem for Labour is that its fundamental proposition had been that the Government was engaging in unspeakably savage public expenditure cuts which would create mass unemployment on a scale not seen since the Thirties.
 - Dominic Lawson, Daily Mail
Labour remains ahead in many polls, has in-built electoral advantage and there is bitter schism on the right. But what a short-sighted strategy in an age of political disruption, amid profound contempt for conventional politics and the steady rise of insurgents to left and tight. As the party panics, debates alternative leaders and descends into the gutter on immigration it is not just their leader but their complacency, their tactics and their pessimism that is in the spotlight. Such issues will not be solved by simply switching leaders.
- Ian Birrell, Independent
The thought occurred that the removal of the poppies might be delayed to accommodate the crowds, but only briefly. Volunteers have been lined up to collect them, clean them, pack them, post them. People who were ahead of the scrum (the poppies have been sold out for weeks) have paid their £25, and they are expecting delivery of their ceramic flowers before Christmas.
As an advocate of British business, Johnson would surely not encourage a trader to default on a promised delivery date or go back on a sale - especially when Forces charities stand to receive millions. 
SubScribe  Poppymania
Thursday 25 September Judges for the Editorial Intelligence comment awards announced their shortlists today, with ten nominations for the FT, nine for the Times, five for the Guardian, four for the Independent - and two for SubScribe. 
The Times and Sunday Times scored a clean sweep in nominations for the main award of commentariat of the year, which will be decided between David Aaronovitch, Camilla Cavendish, Daniel Finkelstein and last year's winner Caitlin Moran.
Guardian's Jay Rayner was shortlisted in the food writer category, but said that he did not wish to be considered as that award is sponsored by Tesco. 
The awards will be presented on November 25. 
See the full shortlists here
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