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"Sack Miliband" - Labour MP's Demand After Outburst

by Christina 123 | July 31, 2008 at 01:42 pm

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Two Labour backbenchers have called on Prime Minister Grodon Brown to "sack" Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, who set out his stall yesterday in an article for the GUARDIAN in which he talks of his vision for "change" with no mention of Gordon Brown. Miliband has widely been regarded as "disloyal and immature".

Tory Leader David Cameron will push strongly for a General Election if a Labour leadership election gets underway after the summer recess in September.

If David Miliband or Harriet Harman - alleged to have said of Labour's disastrous poll defeat at Glasgow East recently, "My time has come" - do depose the current incumbent, but fail to declare a General Election, it will be the first time in history that there would have been a succession of two unelected Labour Prime Ministers.

Newspaper Editors notably in the TIMES, have compared the situation to the time Roy Jenkins was pressured to oust Harold Wilson, but remained loyal and the attempt by Clement Atlee to "see off" Aneurin Bevan. As the newspaper editors wryly point out, it is one thing to attempt a coup, but winning one is quite another.

'Quite deliberate'
Mr Marshall-Andrews, MP for Medway, accused Mr Miliband of "pretty contemptible politics" in his article.
"The complete and conspicuous absence of mention of the prime minister at this particular stage obviously conveys its own message.
I think it's right that we say that, sure we've taken some hits, but actually we've got ideas about the future of the country
David Miliband
Foreign secretary
"It is a quite deliberate message but, as I say, it is a duplicitous message which is the worst possible kind of politics."
He went on: "I think [Mr Brown] should sack him if he doesn't resign and mount a proper leadership challenge."
But the foreign secretary insisted the article had been intended as a challenge to Conservative leader David Cameron rather than to the prime minister.
He said the worst thing for his party would be "if we all went mute" at present.