Miliband speaks

Ed Miliband spoke today of the need for people in the UK to take more personal responsibility.

He tried to be statesmanlike; his voice ordered to project more gravitas but I can't help but see Miliband as a Wallace and Grommit cartoon figure. It's his mouth; it's as if it's moulded with plasticine. With as much authority as he could muster he effectively said: 'one and one are ... er, two.'
The latest revelations about the behaviour of senior officials News International and senior officers of the Metropolitan Police is hot on the heels of the polititions own expenses scandal and the furore over banking bonuses. Miliband saw it as a National problem and grand failure of Noblesse Oblige where people with influence have abandoned the women and children, the elderly, the vulnerable, in a rush to get as much money as they can in as short a time as possible. He was merely stating the bleeding obvious in the hope that he would be seen as leading the debate on where the country goes from here. He might just as well as said: 'We are NOT all in this together!'

Nevertheless, we must be more charitable because what Miliband said reflects what many of us have been saying for some time. There must be a better way. As long as the acquisition of money is seen as the only game in town, young men in particular will all aspire to be traders in the City because it's seen as the quickest way of making big bucks without actually doing a stroke of proper work.