And I haven’t seen or heard of a popular conspiracy theory yet. Surely there should be something. This is why US politics is so much more entertaining.
- Well he’s the son of an important Marxist and he’s unmarried to boot.
I assume this is about Ed Miliband.
What’s to theorise about? Ed squeaked into power by cozying up to the unions (who are getting a little nervous already as he rebounds rightward again). That’s not exactly a secret. Brother David was a tad miffed and has taken his ball and gone home. Diane Abbott is already trying to get some sort of portfolio (“cities” IIRC). Ed Balls and Andy Burnham will probably end up on the Shadow Cabinet somewhere as well. It’s all business as usual.
I’ll be mightily surprised if he’s any good at the job, but Labour have a little while before the next election anyhow.
The fact that, of the three major parties in the UK, one has “Labour” in its name and another has “Liberal” in its name should give a clue that British politics is somewhere to the left of American politics. From what I’ve read of him, Ed Miliband is not that far from the centre of British politics.
Being Jewish in the UK is basically meaningless apart from your own personal life. The voters and the press couldn’t give a crap. It’s not like the US were it would be a big deal. His father was a major Marxist but the two sons are totally in the the center of UK political spectrum.
He’s also not married to his live-in girlfriend, who’s about to give birth to his second child outside of wedlock :eek:
I’m very proud that pretty much no one gives a stuff about this. The only hilarious phone-in show I heard discuss it had some Christian caller complaining that ‘we are supposed to be a Christian country so how can we have a potential Prime Minister who’s an unmarried man living in sin’. The caller had missed the part about him also being a jewish atheist 
You Brits are really kind of cool in some ways.
Perhaps we just like to know where we stand. You know precisely what you’re getting when your main parties are called Labour, Liberal and Conservative.
US politics are much more confusing to outsiders, particularly when you assign the socialist colour red to the Republican party.
As long as you know that Labour used to be to the left of the Liberals, until Labour moved right in many ways, and you remember that the government is now Liberal-Conservative.
A model of clarity, that. :D;)
Well, with the Libs now in bed with the Tories and Ed getting promoted through the backing of the Unions, it looks like the Natural Order is being restored 
As an average to well informed Englishman:
Jewish? Didn’t know, don’t care.
Atheist? Didn’t know, don’t care.
Fornicator? Good on 'im.
Marxist? It’s said in the Labour party, or so I hear, that daddy Milliband, who was the Marxist, always said that the Labour party would betray the working classes and he produced two sons to prove it. Which seems factually accurate.
Joke on BBC radio 4 news quiz-
Can’t remember the exact wording, but something like:
North Korea is a Marxist state with a hereditary leadership…or is that Ed Milliband’s vision of a future Britain…
Michael Howard got some flak for it, not to mentioned Tam Daylel’s “cabal of Jews” controlling British and American foreign policy.
I thought the most interesting part of that election was that he was running against his brother.
You should know better: does the name of the Australian Liberal Party give any indication to its politics?
Sure liberal means “left-wing” in North America, but it’s closer to libertarian or similar outside of it. Even while the Lib Dems might be left of Labour, they have a lot of non-traditionally left-wing policies.
The Guardian rang a comparision piece yesterday about the leaders of the 3 main British parties.
Nick Clegg and Ed Milliband are professed atheists, David Cameron has said publicly that his Anglican faith comes and goes, so we count him, I suppose, in the agnostic column.
It struck me as interesting, that none of the 3 are committed theists, nor feel the need to pretend to be.
Wasn’t Blair’s faith a negative for him? I remember it being mentioned negatively in British media.
Isn’t religion a lot like the monarchy for many Britons? An icon of the past that has nice old buildings and expensively dressed people who say nice platitudes but mixing it with politics is a faux pas.
As for living in sin, the Canadian prime minister did that in the late 60s.
Very true that. Parties such as the DP (Luxembourg) and FDP (Germany) are not exactly socialist - in fact, they are rather the opposite. Not religiously conservative, but very pro-free-market; I guess you could call them fiscal libertarians, or neoliberal capitalists.
I think that was more about his conversion to Catholicism; certainly that occupied a lot of newspapers, even prior to it happening as many guessed that he might well do so. Really, the only negative remarks about his faith that i’ve seen commonly are in connection with Bush, in that their sympathies were supposedly together. More just a criticism of Bush, really.
I would say that it is akin to other relationships in a politician’s life. A politician mentioning in a speech how much he loved his wife in an offhanded way, hey, fair enough. A politician mentioning his love for his wife in every speech and at every occasion would probably be thought of as soppy (or in the closet) - and willing to share too much. It’s the same with religion - a politician mentioning or referring to his faith? No problem, good luck with it. A politician mentioning his faith all the time? I think we’d be asking why he was making his very personal relationship so public.
Good comment, how many so called Christians in government are real Christians?
Could this be a Commonwealth conspircy?
In Australia our Labor Party Prime Minister is an Athiest woman with no kids living in sin with her divorced boyfriend! But worst of all she is a Ranga!!!:eek:
Jewish? We’re not racist.
Atheist? We have freedom of religion. That includes not having one.
Marxist? We have freedom of speech. He’ll put his views and policies to the voters and be elected or not on his and their merits.
Unmarried? It would be better for him and his children if he were, but we don’t force people.
As for the Monarchy, it’s popular over here. Queen Elizabeth II herself is very popular, Charles is not particularly popular, and William is pretty popular. I’m not sure how popular Harry is, but he’s respected for his work in Afghanistan.