The Brain drain continues. David Miliband, the geeky brother, the one with personality, fully formed ideas and a smidgen of decency about him, has decided to throw in the towel. There is no future in Labour for such a man. Hopefully, there is no future in Labour. Full Stop. The next election will see the comedic creatures of Ed Miliband and Ed Balls still side by side. At least the cartoonists will be delighted. The Tory party too.

The inevitable by-election in South Shields will see a full return to old Labour, the Union hard men uniting behind the chosen one.

South Shields has changed since the days of the Jarrow march and men whose wives pawned their Sunday suit on a Monday morning to feed the bairns. The last ship builder closed in 1984, the last coal mine in 1993. These days the workforce is more likely to be employed in a call centre, and where once the unemployment rate was the highest in the UK, it is now a more respectable 7.8%. Coca Cola, Marks and Spencer’s, Vodophone, all vie with each other to snap up anybody prepared to work. These aren’t necessarily the sort of companies that attract the type of people likely to blindly vote labour because of their working conditions. They may have other concerns.

Already UKIPs odds have been slashed from 20/1 to 7/1 to win in South Shields. Cllr. David Potts, the former Conservative councillor, has joined UKIP and become their first UKIP councillor in South Tyneside. They will be hoping to build on that start.

Though ironically, South Shields was one of the most successful examples of immigration in British life.

Back in 1909, the local ship building industry was creating a shortage of sailors, and sailors from Yemeni were encouraged to make their home in the area. Tramp steamers – ships that plied irregular routes and required crew willing to work for long periods – were unattractive to European sailors. Into this breach Yemeni workers willingly stepped from what had recently become the Aden British protectorate. Because civic authorities feared cultural mixing, seamen of all nationalities were barred by law from residing in private lodgings with local families. T’was ever thus. They established their own lodging houses, which quickly became a hub for financial transactions, and news of upcoming jobs – though these were mainly below decks, shoveling coal into the furnaces. Near 700 of them perished during the war, unable to escape the torpedoes from their place in the bowels of their ships. When the war ended, instead of being regarded as returning servicemen or British subjects with rights, they were reclassified as ‘coloured aliens’, barred from receiving welfare and sometimes deported. With a depressed shipping industry and a labour market bloated by demobilised British service personnel, Arab seamen even became the targets of popular hostility.

Thus began one of the very first Muslim communities in Britain. By some estimates, more than one-third of the town’s 1911 population was born outside England or born to immigrant parents.

Possibly not the best place in the world for UKIP to campaign on an anti-immigration ticket….

Barrie Jones
March 29, 2013 at 12:50

The International Rescue Committee feature on its ‘board’ such worthies as
Colin Powell, Henry Kissinger and Margret Albright, so Dave will be in
comfortable company.
Won’t be too many confrontations on Iraq I
imagine.

Mudplugger March 28, 2013 at 08:51

Another interesting slant on the Miliband exit….

The International Rescue Committee is reckoned by many to be really a
stealth arm of the CIA’s international operations – you can hide quite a few
operatives in a ‘staff’ of 12,000.
The CIA’s international operations come
under the purview of the US Secretary of State.
In the UK, the operations
of MI6 come under the purview of the Foreign Secretary, thus closely related
to that US arm.
At the time when Miliband Major was UK Foreign Secretary,
the US Secretary of State was Hilary Clinton.
Hilary Clinton was always an
outspoken admirer of Miliband Major – indeed, considered by many to have ‘the
hots’ for him.
When the negotiations for Miliband’s new job started before
Christmas, Hilary Clinton was still US Secretary of State.
You can probably
work out the rest.

Jabba the Cat March 28, 2013 at 11:38

Hmm…nah, I think I’ll go with Obornes take on Milimong mini-minor…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/9957008/David-Miliband-a-colossus-Hes-a-greedy-failure-in-a-cosmic-sulk.html

binao March 28, 2013 at 08:41

Does the departure of Miliband major to do good works in the wider world
leave the Labour party with owt?
Opposition Without Talent that is?

Frankie March 27, 2013 at 23:32

Lets face facts.

David Millibland is the more talented of the Millibland brothers and Anna
highlights his attributes to a ‘T’.

His less talented (but more ruthless) younger brother beat him to the
leadership of the Labour party, and in doing so condemned Labour to at least
two terms in opposition. David Millibland could have joined the Opposition
bench but the loss of the leadership to his ‘mi’ was too great a humiliation.
I’ll bet Christmases and other family gatherings are a whole heap of fun with
one brother smarting at what he sees as his upstart sibling stealing the crown
from right under his nose.

So, he has taken up an opportunity and, when Millibland Minor makes a cock
of the next General Election and we end up with another five years of someone
(maybe it will be Boris) at the helm of some ramshackle lash up of parties,
kicking the poor where it hurts whilst still spending far more than the
country produces then David Millibland may return to the fray. To stay just a
backbench MP would not be to his liking I think. UKIP is a growing protest
vote at a Government that approves the building of aircraft carriers we do not
need and from which we have (and will not have) planes to fly but would also
steal cash from public sector workers and from anyone on benefits who has the
temerity to have a spare bedroom. And we haven’t reached the nadir yet.

c777 March 27, 2013 at 22:17

First job at a globalist charity?
To visit a “show camp” in Africa.

Mudplugger March 27, 2013 at 20:48

About a year ago, Louise Mensch, the blonde, air-headed, chick-lit writing
Tory MP for Corby suddenly ditched her constituency and constituents, heading
off to New York to pursue other interests.
After a decent interval of time,
the banana-waving, blank-firing, odd-looking David Miliband, Labour MP for
South Shields, ditches his constituency and constituents, heading off to New
York to pursue other interests.
Small world, innit ? Or parallel interests
?

GildasTheMonk
March 27, 2013 at 19:58

Interesting – nobly taking up a position with a charity in the East End,
living with the poor, and…oooh hang on! New York! Sounds rather nice. I wonder
if he will have a simple office in a broom cupboard. Or behind the smokey
glass of a glitzy building?
We shall see.

Cascadian March 28, 2013 at 02:42

I would be interested to hear how he got a green card-a prerequisite for
working in the States, and usually very hard to come by, hence the large
number of illegal workers.

Ted Treen
March 30, 2013 at 00:02

Didn’t Mrs Clinton admit to having a crush on him?

Whilst I’m sure that probably helped, it doesn’t say much for her
mental well-being…

Dioclese March 27,
2013 at 14:34

Makes more money over there than the millions he is already making over
here. Socialism at it’s finest!

Brian March 27,
2013 at 14:25

What a pity that Vera Baird’s recent election as Police & Crime
Commissioner for Northumbria means she is ineligible for a return to
Parliament in wor millipede’s comfy chair. Can she claim expenses on top of
her £85k salary?

Brian March 27,
2013 at 14:30

And Cllr David Potts rang a few bells:

http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/local-news/south-tyneside-councillor-david-potts-1371806

Who said that there were no characters left in politics?

Jabba the Cat March 27, 2013 at 20:29

Lol…looks like Cllr David Potts will get on with the dear leader like a
house on fire. They can compare fiscal notes, as the dear leader explains
how the Revenue are in the process of shutting down Farage Limited for non
payment of taxes, and the upcoming slap on the wrist for failing to file
accounts at companies house. If Cllr David Potts brown noses the dear
leader deeply enough, he will be allowed to buy a ticket to the dear
leaders Who Wants To Be A Euro Millionaire EUKIP raffle in 2014. Win, win
all round…well, except for the tax payers footing the bill all the
way…

Cascadian
March 28, 2013 at 02:38

I would elect a drunk, bankrupt over a liebour candidate any day. He
would be much more fiscally capable.

Ted Treen March 30, 2013 at 00:00

The only chair I would be happy to see Ms Baird in would be one that
plugs in…

Belsay Bugle
March 27, 2013 at 13:12

Anna,
Just because they’re descended from immigrants doesn’t mean they
want to be swamped with even more.
UKIP is not by any means just about
immigration.
You might be surprised.

Ed P March 27, 2013 at 13:57

Yes, and generally, no-one dislikes immigration more than now-settled
previous immigrants.

BenSix March
27, 2013 at 17:48

Often true.

Grimy Miner March 27, 2013 at 11:32

I have first hand knowledge of South Shields, it being a seaside
destination for Working Man’s Club and Sunday School trips during my youth in
the 1940′s & 1950′s.
It was a vibrant, happy place to have a short trip
to. Ocean Road (leading from the town centre Market Place to the seafront – a
distance of about a mile) was packed with curry houses, at one time over 50%
of the businesses were curry related. This was a place where the average
Geordie got his first taste of food other than pie & chips or Yorkshire
puddings.

Today? – well, the place is a shithole. Newspapers blow down the length of
Ocean Road, which has been semi pedestrianised. There are still a good
proportion of curry houses, but the quality is dire. Very few people go for a
day trip to South Shields and the place has become a magnet for drunken gangs
of stag/hen parties.

The residents of South shields would be very amenable, IMO, to an approach
by UKIP, as they have been very poorly served by the mainstream political
parties for 50 years.

Moor Larkin March 27, 2013 at 11:57

@Grimy Miner

Sounds a bit like Brighton, just less of it………………….
)

Mudplugger
March 27, 2013 at 12:44

I sincerely hope that UKIP make a good showing at South Shields.
Not
much chance of winning it, but if they show they can start eating into the
Labour welfare-payroll vote in that sort of place, it will ensure that all
three major parties will then be scared absolutely shitless about the
potential scale of all their vote-losses at the Euro elections in 2014 and
the next general election.

All their recent and nebulous utterances about immigration have been
purely driven by the fear of UKIP – if that fear becomes validated by mass
vote-defection in every local, Euro, national or by-election, then the
ordure will really start to hit the circulating draught-creation device.
Forty years too late in my view, but better late than never.

carol42 March 27, 2013 at 17:29

I too would like to see this, it is always assumed that UKIP only take
voted from Conservatives but I doubt this is true since working Labour
voters are far more likely to be affected by uncontrolled immigration, I
include the settled, integrated immigrant population who often resent it
just as much. As far as I can see people might just be ready to vote for
UKIP so sick are they of all the main parties, we are tired of the lot of
them as the indigenous population seems to count for nothing. I have been
a political ‘junkie’ since long ago university days but now, I don’t care
any more and will find it hard to even vote next time and I will certainly
vote UKIP at the Euro elections. Not sure they would be any better but at
least it would give the others a good kick!

Cascadian
March 28, 2013 at 02:32

I believe your analysis is correct.

In Havering-Greater London, recently a UKIP councillor was elected in
a solidly working class area, UKIP came from nowhere, and had little in
the way of organization compared to liebour and the conmen. There seems
to be a mood of “lets try something different, the other buggers have
ignored the working class and failed comprehensively”.

The other thing going for UKIP is liebours ridiculous policy of
running wimmin candidates, to promote “equality”, usually shipped in
from down south. Having dealt with the previous turnip who did nothing
but enrich himself they may be very reluctant to support a right-on,
keener, with a strange accent, only interested in wimmins ishoos and the
next glorious revolution. The conmen are just as hopeless in selecting
candidates, in the aforementioned Havering poll they ran a hyphenated
Rothschild in a working class area-beyond ridiculous. I have great faith
in the working men and women making a sensible choice.

Anna’s 1909 anecdote is interesting, but in the end meaningless, I
too had family in South Shields in 1909, they are long dead along with
any bias they may have had.

Bill Sikes’ Dog
March 27, 2013 at 12:51

They certainly haven’t been served well throughout the course of this
parliament .

David Miliband seems to have spent the whole time feathering his own nest
.

A genuine Marxist to the core .

carol42 March 27, 2013 at 17:30

True, I wonder when Gordon Brown will either do his job or leave
Parliament? all the New Labour crowd are using the knowledge and contacts
to make a fortune – typical.

Moor Larkin March
27, 2013 at 11:02

How can a “Charity” afford him?

Mudplugger
March 27, 2013 at 11:14

Just like other ‘charities’ manage to pay their top people £250k+, that’s
what all the “Please give £3 a month” TV appeals are all about.

miss mildred
March 27, 2013 at 09:46

G’Day Anna. My 14 years worth of front line advice giving, for what it’s
worth gives a different/similar picture of settled immigrants opinions. When
half the Balkans were flooding through the door needing urgent advice. The
well settled immigrants were very concerned that the disruption caused would
also come to them in new rules and local’s resentment would rebound to them.
The council had to do snatch on a fairly modern hall type building used by fit
OAPs to have dinners ,tea and biscuits, and afternoon cards, dominos and
dancing. This was to give emergency advice to these distressed and sometimes
damaged men, who fled terror and rampant racialism A near streetful of settled
Asians near by were very dismayed at the snatch. Out went a chance of more
community adhesion. Mothers were concerned at all these men counting their
handouts opposite a junior school. Most went back after ‘peace’ was restored.
The few who stayed tended to become demanding frequent attenders. We did are
best to help them. I do not like European rules insisting that anyone from the
EU can come and play the benfits game. Having babies and sending them back to
gran in wherever, being a favourite move. Bring on UKIP and I can vote for
them if I want to!