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Friday 24 February 2012

Why Ed?


Why did the Labour party elect Ed Miliband as leader? Did he sneak up on one of their many blind sides? He doesn't look impressive or sound impressive, so surely that counts for something. 

Well maybe not - evidence is evidence - so it didn't count.

Does that imply political parties are now too small to throw up [sic] worthwhile leaders, let alone a worthwhile government? The BBC published these figures here last August. 

2011 party membership
Conservative 177,000 
Labour          190,000
Lib Dem          66,000

I make that 433,000 overall, or about 2.2% of an adult population of 20 million between the ages of 30 and 59. I'm assuming candidates to be unlikely outside this age range, because those over 59 usually don't give a toss anyway.

So Ed was selected from about 1% of the 20 million, Dave from about 0.9% and Nick from about 0.33%.  

The numbers say it's a clique and if the clique becomes state-funded we'll end up with many more like Ed, Dave and Nick - but worse. 

So that's good news isn't it?

4 comments:

James Higham said...

That's a nice take and with those low numbers, the system can put a dead head like Red Ed in charge of our daily lives.

Wow - just thinking about that.

Demetrius said...

Whe you say worse, do you mean like Wilson and Heath?

A K Haart said...

JH - I hope Red Ed goes soon. The slightest possibility of him being PM gives me the shivers.

D - no, even worse. Although Heath would be hard to beat in my view.

Unknown said...

Suppose this means Red Ken could be the next PM with these types of stats. I'll be taking my sipp investments offshore.