Give Ed a break

My personal preference was David, but what's really getting my goat is the vitriole aimed at Ed Milliband because he thwarted his brother's ambitions by standing for the Labour leadership in the first place.

What?

Now with certain things - inheritances and the monarchy - the eldest son always gets priority. Some weird old feudal thing.

But I don't see why, if Ed made his career politics exactly as his brother did, he can't go for the top prize too.

Leaderships don't come round very often and particularly not when there are meglomaniacs like Mrs Thatcher and Tony Blair.

I'm sure the psychologists are going to have a field day. There was excited gossip on the Andrew Marr show today about how Ed always copied David. But here's the thing. (An expression I hate). David had his chance a couple of years ago when he made an attack on Gordon Brown, without naming his prey, but then backed off. He could have made his move then and maybe Labour wouldn't have lost the election. But we'll never know.

My only advice to Ed, following his appearance on the Marr show today, is that he doesn't want to sound like he supports the Coalition government. I know it's hard to find differences between the three leaders, all young, highly educated middle and upper class men as they are, but unless Ed finds a differentiator, we'll be stuck with Cameron and the gang for years.

Thank goodness for Harriet Harman is all I can say: the only senior woman politician and a good #2 to Ed. She is the only minister to have effected any real change for women in over 30 years, with the last being David Steel and his abortion act.