[Chris O'Carroll]

Basil Ransome-Davies and Adrian Fry both wrote winning apologies this week. The new comp appears to be based on the entirely unfair assumption that we read the whole magazine, not just the competition page.

No 4239 Set by Adair R Fyn
The New Statesman published an article earlier this month on Ed Miliband (“His story could keep a psychologist busy for years”) and asked the question: What is Milibandism? We’d like the views of an extreme Milibandist to make the matter clear.
Max 140 words by 16 August comp@newstatesman.co.uk

[Brian Allgar]

Oh dear, Adair, I don't think much of that one.

[John Whitworth]

I think perhaps the Staggers doesn't know what Milibandism is either and is hoping for pointers. Don't help them.

[Brian Allgar]

John, I have no intention of helping them. To do so, I would need:

1. To have read the New Statesman article

2. To read anything in the New Statesman (as Chris said) apart from the competition page

3. To be interested in politics

4. To be interested in Labour politics

5. To know the slightest thing about the nonentity Miliband

6. To have the slightest interest in defining 'Milibandism'

7. To think that there is the slightest amusement to be extracted from the subject

8. To give a gnat's fart for the whole thing.

(Sorry, Adrian - I find it far too specific and far too political. It's a straitjacket competition - all the entries will inevitably be very similar. Not much room for fantasy or humour.)

[Jayne Osborn]

I can't cope with Miliband; even Microband, Nanoband or Picoband would be far too much for me!

Jayne

[Brian Allgar]

I think you've got it wrong, Jayne - they would all be far too little. What we need is Megaband, Gigaband, or even Tetraband. At that point, the fellow might become almost visible to the human eye.

[Chris O'Carroll]

The New Statesman article primarily seems to speculate about what sort of Prime Minister Miliband might be, should he find his way to No. 10 Downing St. Would he be a pragmatic "New Labour" type or a fiery, Internationale-belting "red Ed"? So maybe "an extreme Milibandist" is radically indefinable in some way, and that's where we'll find the comedy potential of this comp?

Obviously, there are nuances in the article that this Yank reader was unequipped to appreciate. For example, I wouldn't be able to parse the distinctions between Blairites and Brownites, and I'm minimally informed about specific public policy issues that have given Miliband the chance to display one facet or another of his political persona. I'm not pointing to deep left field and predicting that I'll knock this one out of the park. But if I read Miliband's Wikipedia biography and maybe look him up in a few online Times, Telegraph, and Guardian articles, I should be able to find enough material that I'll have to blame a loss on my own shortcomings, not on some inherent flaw in the competition.

[Brian Allgar]

But Chris, how will you manage to stay awake long enough to read all that?

Despite what I've said above, I have knocked off an indifferent piece on the subject which, I'm glad to say, required no research at all.

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People are fed up with politics. And they’re fed up with politicians. So it goes without saying that they’re fed up with policies.

That’s what’s really radical about Ed Miliband. He’s not going to have any policies. Instead, he’ll have attitudes; people can relate to attitudes.

He will definitely have a very strong attitude towards the Tory Party. He’s against it, and he doesn’t care who knows it.

He’s also got an attitude towards Tony Blair, and it’s a pretty powerful one: “I’m not Tony Blair. I shall never be Tony Blair. I don’t even look like Tony Blair.”

That’s certainly an attitude people can relate to, isn’t it?

But just to leave no doubt about his total commitment to this attitude, he’s absolutely determined that nothing he does will ever remind people of Blair - like winning a General Election.