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24 November 2011

Thinking Paper #205: An analysis of Ed Miliband's achievements

By Ron Ford Golightly

Abstract

Fifteen months into his tenure as leader of the Labour party and Ed Miliband has done something. The IIPBA accepts that he's failed to capture the public imagination, storm ahead in the polls, get anyone to listen to him, impress his own party, accomplish a successful relaunch, sound convincing, look like a leader, announce a policy, make an inspiring speech, answer the big questions, appear attractive to the electorate, garner support in the media, cope with Dave at PMQs or get his brother to stop prank calling him. BUT, he has coined a phrase.


The detail

That's right. Ed has coined a phrase which has gone on to win the Oxford English Dictionary Word of the Year award. On the Today programme a while back he referred to the "squeezed middle" which he then went on to define as "those lot who we need to vote for us at the next election". The Oxford crew then put it in their dictionary and named it as their Word of the Year beating "clunge", "daisychain" and "fuckingbankers" to the title.

Concluding comments

Not bad Ed. Fifteen months in and you've coined a phrase. Congratulations from the IIPBA.

*Update*

Just in, Gordon Brown used the phrase "squeezed middle" in his 2009 Labour conference speech. Sorry Ed.

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