It is an odd paradox that Ed Milliband is a much better Leader of the Opposition than David Cameron is Prime Minister, yet the latter is popular in his role and the latter is not.
Readers of this blog will know that it is my policy to look beneath and behind and not to join tribal movements of any kind. It is a significant indication of the character beneath the geeky aspect of Ed that it is he, not the Prime Minister, who has spoken for the vast majority in the nation in expressing condemnation of Israel’s sadistic bombardment of Gaza. He has done this, coming as he does from a Jewish family who found sanctuary from tyranny in Britain and whose grandfather was a Holocaust victim.
Not only has Ed Milliband wrong footed the silent Cameron, he has confirmed the fact that Israel has suffered a sea changing strategic defeat. Up till now there has been a hint that criticism of the Jewish State was de-facto anti-semitic. This is no longer the case. Jews the world over are as horrified as everybody else. By its heavy handed military tactics and its obdurate approach to any form of peace discussion, Israel has separated itself from the high aspirations and principles of it founders, and in so doing it has pulled open a plughole, down which sympathy for it is fast draining away.