Miliband memory mystery deepens
DAVID Miliband’s forgetfulness goes national… as The Independent note his performance in Gospel Oak last month. Its columnist Steve Richards was actually chairing the meeting at the Queen’s Crescent Community Association.
There is more mystery to the story though, D-Mil you recall acted like he had hardly any knowledge of Camden’s long-running, sorry dispute over council home repairs when taking questions from the audience. This all very strange, as he was one of the ministers once charged with breaking a funding deadlock. As I looked through the archives pictures of dear old Ellen Luby last week, I came across this old story from 2006. Look. It’s David Miliband. The same one. Tall, thin, tuft of grey, telling the New Journal how he was getting stuck into Camden’s housing crisis. He is full of bold words: “It was a matter for local people and it is something we need to look at again. We are talking to council about the way forward.”
So what happened? How come he lost track? Surely before his visit to the library in Camden Town that day he wasn’t pumped with briefings to keep the pesky old New Camden Journal happy. Surely he didn’t just regurgitate a pleasing line for us and then forget it the next day? Surely.
Richard Osley 
What is really telling is that he turned up to a meeting in Camden but did not have an aide prepare a brief of the issues he was likely to confront with a reminder of what he had said about them in the past.
That would be basic preparation before going into any meeting – you read the minutes of the last one just to remind you of what the issues are. How can he be taken seriously when he can’t be bothered to prepare for a meeting in advance?
It reminds me of my time on Hull City Council when Labour’s lobby-fodder members would turn up for a committee meeting with 40 odd items on the agenda and open their envelope containing the papers for the first time as the meeting started….
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