By
Paul Harris
Last updated at 3:45 AM on 22nd December 2011
The news is bad … very bad indeed. Labour is trailing in the polls and most of the country still regards Ed Miliband as an unelectable geek.
Fellow MPs have publicly denounced his performances at Prime Minister’s Questions as disastrous.
So what can be done to improve 41-year-old Ed’s public image?
Happy family: Ed Miliband with wife Justine and sons Samuel, one, and Daniel, two. On Christmas Day, the Labour leader will be in the kitchen peeling spuds
Idea! What about setting up an interview with a friendly tabloid, plonk him in front of a Christmas tree with his family, and show the world his ‘human’ side?
It seemed to work for Dave and Samantha when they let a snapper into their Downing Street home.
The result of this copycat strategy was on show yesterday over three pages of the Labour-supporting Daily Mirror, billed as Ed’s ‘most revealing interview ever’.
See how he dresses down in jeans and loafers. Learn how he once bounced his baby boy on his knee for three hours in the middle of the night to get him back to sleep.
Marvel at disclosures ranging from A (his adenoids, recently operated on to cure sleep apnoea); to Z (a ZX Spectrum, his first computer and his favourite Christmas present of all time).
Ladies, gentlemen and voters – here we present Ed Miliband Unplugged.
A fate, it appears, which might also have befallen his Christmas tree.
‘The most difficult part of my job is missing out on time with the boys and that I can’t do my share of the childcare,’ said Ed
WHAT, NO LIGHTS?
The pressies are all wrapped and piled under the tree. It boasts only minimal decoration and the lights seem to be off, even though it’s dusk outside.
Surely the hapless spruce wasn’t crammed into the modestly sized room purely for the photoshoot?
Whatever, the kids are getting excited about the big day. Daniel, two, and his brother Samuel, one, have recently met Santa. (Don’t tell them it was only Ed Balls dressed up for the Treasury Christmas party). So there could be trouble if a helicopter jigsaw doesn’t appear on Christmas morning.
Ed will be in the kitchen peeling spuds, apparently.
‘I’ll be doing the cooking with mum but Ed HAS to peel the potatoes,’ says his wife, the lovely Justine.
Now try this mini-Christmas quiz. Does Ed peel the potatoes because: (a) he’s on punishment detail; (b) he’s a lousy cook; (c) he has strong affiliations with the Amalgamated Union of Potato Peelers?
Does he dread Prime Minister’s Questions? ‘Not at all. I feel I win as many as I don’t,’ said Ed
MAN OF THE PEOPLE
What an ordinary, down-to-earth bloke he is inside his £1.6million North London house.
We learn that he likes cheesy 80s music including the Norwegian band A-Ha; that he often pops down to his local Indian restaurant; and his favourite Chinese combo is duck, spring rolls and sweet sour chicken.
Heroes include Geoffrey Boycott (cricket) Jimmy Connors (tennis) and Alex Higgins (snooker and alcoholism). He likes EastEnders but doesn’t have time to watch it; and if it’s a toss-up between Strictly or X-Factor, X wins his vote.
DOTING DAD
The good news: He wants to spend more time with his family.
Bad news: He still intends to stay in politics.
‘The most difficult part of my job is missing out on time with the boys and that I can’t do my share of the childcare,’ Ed says.
He tries to get home before bathtime once a week and to see the boys in the mornings before he goes to work.
ON POLITICS
Politics is ‘very, very important to me’, he says, adding: ‘I know who I am and what I am about.’
ON GEEKDOM
‘Yes, I was a geek, so I can’t complain when people call me it. They call me all sorts of other things.’
ON CAMERON
‘We’re not bosom buddies. I’m not planning on having him round for Christmas.’
On brother David: ‘He is making a great contribution outside of the Cabinet’
THE B-WORD
Brother David was ‘hurt’ by the sibling rivalry that developed between them in the leadership battle ‘but we’re fine now’.
Mum told Ed: ‘You have to do what you want to do,’ he discloses, adding: ‘David and I have both moved on. Really. It was hard, he was hurt, but now we’re fine and he is doing his own thing.
‘Of course I’d like him to work with me, but that has to be a matter for him.’
What’s he doing now then?
‘He is making a great contribution outside of the Cabinet,’ says Ed (no examples forthcoming).
PMQ NIGHTMARES
Does he dread Prime Minister’s Questions?
‘Not at all,’ he says. ‘I feel I win as many as I don’t.
‘I suppose I could try and needle Cameron more but I think it’s about the questions – and he doesn’t answer them. He should start to give straight answers instead of coming up with the same old jokes.’
LITTLE-KNOWN FACT
The man who hopes to lead the country can un-twizzle a Rubik’s Cube in one minute, 30 seconds flat.
Catastrophic financial deficits take a little longer.
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Long may Ed stay as Labour leader, completely unelectable and a very annoying voice!!- John, London, 22/12/2011 1:54……….Come on John you have an MP in the cabinet who has the most annoying voice in the house and you once had him as your leader, William Haigh, man who hasn’t any charisma whatsoever. What is more, anyone could have told you that a man who is short of hair would not be elected as PM, so what did you do after William Haigh was humiliated? you had another man who is short of hair, short of charisma and you expected him to lead you to victory. What a bunch of thick’os you tories are.
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Nu Liebour never learn from their own history with unpopular leadership choices.
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Miliband has more substance than 100 Camerons. In fact, my cat has more substance than any of those toffs now attempting to run this country. All you tories posting messages of criticism about Labour will soon be sorry when the Tory cuts start hurting you. And they will. Believe me.
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Folks, we prefer Ed to the Obnoxious Call me Dave…..(!)
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If Labour are serious about regaining power they must replace this Guy. He’s
a Michael Foot without the intellect. A marketing nightmare……………
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So Red Ed , hopefully for a long time you lot will be making a great contribution outside the Cabinet. The thicko seems to believe he is still in government. Hopefully under B were the words brotherly betrayal. This is the main reason he is unelectable. To betray family the way he did is the most underhanded disgusting t/hing he could have done. Speaks volumes for the nerd. Anyway I thought Red Ed was agnostic. Why is he celebrating Christmas in a staged photo? Own goal me thinks.
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And this is news !
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Impossible to get a comment through your auto word recognition system D.M.
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whatever he is – and I’m no fan – he’s better than that awful self-serving morally bankrupt egotist cameron.
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And when Saint Cameron is shown with his family in the exact same way, we are expected to revere him in the same manner as the N Korean’s did, Kim Jong-Il.
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