Virginia Blackburn

WHEN future historians come to mull over the death of Labour, there will no doubt be many seminal events to focus on. Michael Foot’s “longest suicide note in history”, Tony Blair’s warmongering, the current incumbent’s attempt to drag us back into the 1970s will all get their due. But a footnote should be given to the saga of the Miliband brothers and how the choice of the wrong one as leader finally sounded the death knell for a once great party.

When David Miliband was defeated in his attempt to become the Labour Party leader, knifed in the back by his own brother, he upped sticks to New York, where he now works as the president and CEO of the International Rescue Committee. I am no fan of David, but he is clearly a serious man who wants to do his bit for the world.

When his brother Ed lost the general election, his one and only contribution to the Labour Party being to relax its membership criteria and thus allow in the extremists who are currently destroying it, he seemed to disappear pretty much from public view.

Until last week, that is, when he re-emerged on The Last Leg, a Channel 4 comedy show miming to the 1980s hit Take On Me, pretending to play various musical instruments including the guitar and keyboards, swearing and ending up playing the role of director, saying, “Talk about a mid-life crisis.” And that is the man who wanted to be the leader of the country.

There’s nothing wrong with politicians taking the mickey out of themselves, but can you imagine Winston Churchill taking part in such a skit? Or Harold Wilson, come to that?