Ed Miliband’s ‘immorality’ might explain why he lost the 2015 general election and why voters never really took to him
Anthropologists at Oxford University have identified what they believe to be seven universal moral rules. We asked Brits which they thought was the single most important:
Help your family – 38%
Divide resources fairly – 18%
Respect others' property – 16%https://t.co/WoS2oPccRe pic.twitter.com/gwMcQtgh8r— YouGov (@YouGov) March 1, 2019
Being seen as the worst brother since Cain didn’t help Ed Miliband chances of becoming Prime Minister
I’m fascinated by this polling by YouGov about the seven universal moral rules as developed by anthropologists from the University of Oxford. You can read the study by clicking this link here.
It is clear that helping your family is seen as the most important. When Ed Miliband became Labour leader all the focus groups really knew about him was that he was David Miliband’s brother and that he had stabbed his brother in the back to become Labour leader.
It could explain why he had such poor personal polling consistently trailing David Cameron in the leadership/approval ratings. I think the Tories ruthlessly exploited this theme, memorably when Ed Miliband tried to exploit divisions between Cameron and Nick Clegg, Cameron responded with “It’s not that bad, it’s not like we are brothers or anything!”
Then there was the 2015 general election campaign which saw David Cameron’s Defence Secretary, Michael Fallon, say during the campaign “Ed Miliband stabbed his own brother in the back to become Labour leader. Now he is willing to stab the United Kingdom in the back to become prime minister.”
Then again if Ed Miliband and his supporters disagree with these findings then he can dismiss it as being from the University of Oxford, a place with such low standards they let in Jeffrey Archer.