Now it’s blubbing Ed! He sobbed at film about gays who marched for miners
IT tells the story of coal miners in a tough working- class community in Wales.
And it seems the film Pride was a little overwhelming for soft-hearted Hampstead socialist Ed Miliband.
The Labour leader has confessed he cried when he and his wife Justine watched a DVD of the 2014 movie starring Bill Nighy and Imelda Staunton.
He said: ‘Pride is about the lesbian and gay community in London who go and help the miners in Wales and Justine and I watched it recently. I blubbed.’
In a radio interview, Mr Miliband was asked about Jeremy Paxman’s description of him as a ‘north London geek’ during his television grilling last week.
He said: ‘I plead guilty to being a geek. I’m proud.’ The Labour leader claimed never to have been a trainspotter or a member of a chess club, but
‘No hand-eye coordination’
said that as a 12-year-old he had a ‘big passion’ for the 1983 video game Manic Miner, which he played using his ZX Spectrum computer linked to a TV.
Talking to Absolute Radio’s Geoff Lloyd, he said: ‘I was brilliant. As I remember, there were 20 levels. I’m not sure I’m very good at hand-eye coordination but I was good at Manic Miner.
‘I used to drive my parents slightly mad because you used to play it on the telly, obviously, so they wouldn’t be able to watch.’
Mr Miliband said he used to use an iPhone, but gave it up for a BlackBerry because he had been spending too much time reading tweets and political commentary. He added: ‘The good thing about a BlackBerry... I’m going to insult the BlackBerry makers now, is it’s harder to do those things so it’s got a more limited functionality, I think they call it.’
Despite downgrading his phone, perhaps to avoid having to read negative remarks about himself, Mr Miliband insisted he was thick-skinned.
‘I think it comes with the territory of the job,’ he said. ‘You know what’s kept me going throughout all this, is a sort of inner belief.
‘If I was just running for this job because I wanted my face on the wall inside Downing Street, then that wouldn’t be enough for the motivation. My motivation is to change the country.’
Mr Miliband said that his mother calls him Edward when she is unhappy with him, but claimed she had not done this when he chose to stand against his brother David for the Labour leadership. He said: ‘So, I was quite a lot of things. I was an Edward, and partly when I lived in America I was an Eddie. I was a Ted at university. I sort of became a Ted briefly but I’m happy with Ed.’ He joked: ‘My mum calls me Edward if I’m in trouble or if she doesn’t like one of our policies.’
Mr Miliband said that he was a fan of the singer Ellie Goulding and the band Bastille, but claimed he did not spend his time learning about popular culture to try to appear normal. He said: ‘I’m more interested in swatting up on what’s happening in the Middle East rather than Top Gear.’