Ed Miliband: I don't read the papers, I don't watch the news
How does Ed Miliband know what anyone is saying about him?
One thing that struck me as odd in an interview the Labour leader has given to The House Magazine (edited by one Gisela Stuart) is that he doesn't read the papers or watch the television news.
The interviewer, Paul Waugh (here he is on Twitter), reports:
Does he read the newspapers? "No, not really." Does he watch the TV news? "When you get home, the thing I most want to do is spend time with my kids.".The commentariat are another group that don't trouble him. "You know I think the thing you learn most in this job is you let the commentators, the people who give you advice, to take their own view and you carry on doing the right thing as you see it."
I'm assuming that mainstream news websites are counted as newspapers here. If Mr Miliband simply preferred to use his computer rather than read papers the old-fashioned way, he'd presumably have said so.
Neither does it sound as if he's busy reading blogs or Twitter. He seems quite happy just to live in a bubble.
Of course, "not listening to the media" might be seen as a very good thing. But doesn't a leader of the opposition need to have some idea what people are saying about him, even if he chooses to ignore them?
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Interesting indeed. Maybe he really does not care what anyone thinks about him and he's waiting for the next general election to find out? If so, he'll probably discover he's not very popular.
Reference the "subtle" point you make that "The House Magazine is edited by one Gisela Stuart", surely you're not suggesting it is biased in any way? If so, then it's no more biased than our interrelated publicly funded organisations with individuals sitting on each others boards and scratching each others backs. Do they care or pay any attention to what anyone says about them?
Doesn't read the papers or watch the news? Labour seldom does. If only they did when they were in power they may have been more in tune with the electorate. Clearly nothing has changed (although I personally find it hard to believe that Wallace doesn't even have a copy of the Guardian stashed somewhere). This one will never be Prime Minister.